Long-Range Forecasts As Climate Adaptation: Experimental Evidence From Developing-Country Agriculture

Fiona Burlig, Amir Jina, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory V. Lane and Harshil Sahai

No 32173, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Climate change increases weather variability, preventing farmers from tailoring investments to the upcoming monsoon. In theory, accurate, seasonal forecasts overcome this challenge. We experimentally evaluate monsoon onset forecasts in India, randomizing 250 villages into control, forecast, and benchmark insurance groups. Forecast farmers update their beliefs and behavior: receiving “good news” relative to a farmer’s prior increases cultivation, farm inputs, farm profits (for those unaffected by flooding) and reduces business; receiving “bad news” reduces cultivated land and farm profits but increases business. Overall, forecasts raise a welfare index by 0.06 SD. Unlike insurance, forecasts reduce climate risk by enabling tailoring.

JEL-codes: D81 O12 O13 Q12 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-exp
Note: DEV EEE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32173.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

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:nbr:nberwo:32173

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32173
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().