IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/endeec/v25y2020i5p459-481_3.html

Does choice of drought index influence estimates of drought-induced rice losses in India?

Author

Listed:
  • Fontes, Francisco
  • Gorst, Ashley
  • Palmer, Charles

Abstract

Drought events have critical impacts on agricultural production yet there is little consensus on how these should be measured and defined, with implications for drought research and policy. We develop a flexible rainfall-temperature drought index that captures all dry events and we classify these as Type 1 (above-average cooling degree days) and Type 2 droughts (below-average cooling degree days). Applied to a panel dataset of Indian districts over 1966–2009, Type 2 droughts are found to have negative marginal impacts comparable to those of Type 1 droughts. Irrigation more effectively reduces Type 2 drought-induced yield losses than Type 1 yield losses. Over time, Type 1 drought losses have declined while Type 2 losses have risen. Estimates of average yield losses due to Type 1 droughts are reduced by up to 27 per cent when Type 2 droughts are omitted. The associated ex-post economic costs in terms of rice production are underestimated by up to 124 per cent.

Suggested Citation

  • Fontes, Francisco & Gorst, Ashley & Palmer, Charles, 2020. "Does choice of drought index influence estimates of drought-induced rice losses in India?," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(5), pages 459-481, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:endeec:v:25:y:2020:i:5:p:459-481_3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1355770X2000011X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anubhab Pattanayak & K. S. Kavi Kumar, 2022. "Fiscal Transfers, Natural Calamities and Partisan Politics: Evidence from India," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 375-392, July.
    2. Yitbarek, Eleni & Tesfaye, Wondimagegn, 2025. "From farm to market: Impacts of climate shocks on selected agricultural value chains in Ethiopia," Sustainable Global Supply Chains Discussion Papers 9, Research Network Sustainable Global Supply Chains.
    3. Francisco Fontes & Ashley Gorst & Charles Palmer, 2021. "Threshold effects of extreme weather events on cereal yields in India," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-20, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q10 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - General
    • Q19 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Other
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:endeec:v:25:y:2020:i:5:p:459-481_3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ede .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.