Climate variations, culture and economic behaviour of Chinese households

Dayong Zhang, Jun Li, Qiang Ji and Shunsuke Managi
Additional contact information
Jun Li: Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

Climatic Change, 2021, vol. 167, issue 1, No 9, 18 pages

Abstract: Abstract Societies adapt to climate variations and develop unique cultures that lead to distinctive economic behaviour across different regions. To estimate the climate-economic link and test the hypothetical role of culture, this paper uses a nationwide survey at the household level in China, together with historical temperature data at the prefectural city level for empirical analysis. The results show the significant role of local climate variations on consumption, savings and investment decisions by households. Harsh weather conditions are associated with lower consumption, lower income and higher savings. Such climate characteristics are also associated with a lower probability of purchasing risky financial assets. Using a sample of migrating families, we find strong evidence that culture is an important channel in the climate-economic relationship. Additional support for this view is found through the “catching up with the Joneses” effect documented in the economics literature. Overall, this research provides an alternative perspective for understanding the long-term behavioural impact of climate change.

Keywords: Climate variation; Culture; Economic behaviour; Household survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-021-03145-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:167:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-021-03145-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-021-03145-6

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().