Alpizar, Francisco () (Environment for Development Center, Tropical Agricultural and Higher Education Center (CATIE)) Carlsson, Fredrik () (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) Naranjo, Maria () (Environment for Development Center, Tropical Agricultural and Higher Education Center (CATIE))
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The risk of loses of income and productive means due to adverse weather associated to climate change can significantly differ between farmers sharing a productive landscape. It is important to learn more about how farmers react to different levels of risk, under measurable and unmeasurable uncertainty. Moreover, the costs associated to investments in reduced vulnerability to climatic events are likely to exhibit economies of scope. We explore these issues using a framed field experiment that captures realistically the main characteristics of production, and the likely weather related loses of premium coffee farmers in Tarrazu, Costa Rica. Given that the region recently was severely hit by an extreme, albeit very infrequent, climatic event, we expected to observe, and found high levels of risk aversion, but we do observe farmers making trade offs under different risk levels. Although hard to disentangle at first sight given the high level of risk aversion, we find that farmer’s opt more frequently for safe options in a setting characterized by unknown risk. Finally, we find that farmers to a large extent are able to coordinate their decisions in order to achieve a lower cost of adaptation, and that communication among farmers strongly facilitates coordination.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Göteborg University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers in Economics with number
382.
Length: 22 pages Date of creation: 21 Sep 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0382
Contact details of provider: Postal: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University Box 640, SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG, Sweden Phone: 031-773 10 00 Web page: http://www.handels.gu.se/econ/ More information through EDIRC
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