The Impact of Global Warming on U.S. Agriculture: An Econometric Analysis of Optimal Growing Conditions

Wolfram Schlenker, Michael Hanemann () and Anthony C. Fisher

Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: We link farmland values to climatic, soil, and socioeconomic variables for counties east of the 100th meridian, the historic boundary of agriculture not primarily dependent on irrigation. Degree days, a non-linear transformation of the climatic variables suggested by agronomic experiments as more relevant to crop yield gives an improved fit and increased robustness. Estimated coefficients are consistent with the experimental results. The model is employed to estimate the potential impacts on farmland values for a range of recent warming scenarios. The predictions are very robust and more than 75% of the counties in our sample show a statistically significant effect, ranging from moderate gains to large losses, with losses in the aggregate that can become quite large under scenarios involving sustained heavy use of fossil fuels.

Keywords: agriculture; climate changes; econometric models; global warming; Life Sciences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-10-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Impact of Global Warming on U.S. Agriculture: An Econometric Analysis of Optimal Growing Conditions (2006)
Working Paper: The Impact of Global Warming on U.S. Agriculture: An Econometric Analysis of Optimal Growing Conditions (2004)
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