Effects of Temperature and Rainfall Shocks on Economic Growth in Africa

Ayodele Odusola and Babatunde Abidoye

No 267028, UNDP Africa Research Discussion Papers from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of temperature and rainfall volatility on economic growth in 46 African countries. We employ the Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach which allows us to estimate both country level and Africa-wide impact of climate change and extreme events on economic growth in Africa. Our results show that a 10 Celsius increase in temperature leads to 1.58 percentage points decline in economic growth while temperature shock reduces economic growth by 3.22 percentage points. A 1 percent change or shock in rainfall leads to a 6.7 percent change in economic growth. The impact of temperature changes across the 46 countries ranges from -1.24 percent to -1.82 percent in GDP. There are proximity effects on the impact. To maximize the benefits of economies of scale, the paper suggests combined national, cross countries and continental approaches to climate change adaptation in Africa.

Pages: 39
Date: 2015-08-14
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/267028/files/E ... icGrowthinAfrica.pdf (application/pdf)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/267028/files/E ... a.pdf?subformat=pdfa (application/pdf)

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:ags:undprp:267028

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.267028

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in UNDP Africa Research Discussion Papers from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().