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The potential benefits of agricultural adaptation to warming in China in the long run

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2017

Kaixing Huang ,
Jinxia Wang ,
Jikun Huang  and
Christopher Findlay
Kaixing Huang
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Nankai University, Tianjin, China School of Economics, the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
Jinxia Wang
Affiliation:
China Centre for Agricultural Policy, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
Jikun Huang*
Affiliation:
China Centre for Agricultural Policy, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
Christopher Findlay
Affiliation:
Faculty of the Professions, the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: jkhuang.ccap@pku.edu.cn
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Abstract

Understanding the extent to which agriculture can adapt to climate change and the determinants of farmers' adaptive capacity are of paramount importance from a policy perspective. Based on household survey data from a large sample in rural China, the present article adopts a panel approach to estimate the potential benefits of long-run adaptation and to identify the determinants of farmers' adaptive capacity. The empirical results suggest that, for various model settings and climate change scenarios, long-run adaptations should mitigate one-third to one-half of the damages of warming on crop profits by the end of this century. These findings support the basic argument of the hedonic approach that omitting long-run adaptations will dramatically overestimate the potential damage of climate change. The paper also finds that household-level capital intensity and farmland size have significant effects on farmers' adaptive capacities.

Keywords

Climate changeadaptation capacityagriculture and ChinaQ15Q51Q54
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 139 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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