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The Effect of the El Nino Southern Oscillation on U.S. Corn Production and Downside Risk

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  • Tack, Jesse B.
  • Ubilava, David

Abstract

El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections imply anomalous weather conditions around the globe, causing yield shortages, price changes, and even civil unrests. Extreme ENSO events may cause catastrophic damages to crop yields, thus amplifying downside risk for producers. This study presents a framework for quantifying the effects of climate on crop yield distributions. An empirical application provides estimates of the effect that ENSO events have on the means of U.S. county-level corn yield distributions, as well as the probabilities of catastrophic crop loss. Our findings demonstrate that ENSO events strongly influence these probabilities systematically over large production regions, which has important implications for research and policy analysis in the production, risk management, climate change, and civil unrest literatures.

Suggested Citation

  • Tack, Jesse B. & Ubilava, David, 2012. "The Effect of the El Nino Southern Oscillation on U.S. Corn Production and Downside Risk," 2012 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2012, Birmingham, Alabama 119785, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:saea12:119785
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.119785
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    Cited by:

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    2. Andrea Bastianin & Alessandro Lanza & Matteo Manera, 2018. "Economic impacts of El Niño southern oscillation: evidence from the Colombian coffee market," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(5), pages 623-633, September.
    3. Peri, Massimo, 2015. "Cliamte Variability and Agricultural Price volatility: the case of corn and soybeans," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212623, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Jesse B. Tack & David Ubilava, 2015. "Climate and agricultural risk: measuring the effect of ENSO on U.S. crop insurance," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(2), pages 245-257, March.
    5. Hildegart Ahumada & Magdalena Cornejo, 2019. "How econometrics can help us understand the effects of climate change on crop yields: the case of soybeans," School of Government Working Papers 201902, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    6. A. Ford Ramsey & Barry K. Goodwin, 2019. "Value-at-Risk and Models of Dependence in the U.S. Federal Crop Insurance Program," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-21, April.
    7. Zhu, Yichen & Ghoshray, Atanu, 2021. "Climate Anomalies and Its Impact on U.S. Corn and Soybean Prices," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315271, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Ubilava, David & Orlowski, Jan, 2016. "The Predictive Content of Climate Anomalies for Agricultural Production: Does ENSO Really Matter?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 236281, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Jesse Tack & Andrew Barkley & Lawton Nalley, 2014. "Heterogeneous effects of warming and drought on selected wheat variety yields," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 489-500, August.
    10. Patalee, M.A. Buddhika & Tonsor, Glynn T., 2021. "Impact of weather on cow-calf industry locations and production in the United States," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    11. Matteo Bonato & Oğuzhan Çepni & Rangan Gupta & Christian Pierdzioch, 2023. "El Niño, La Niña, and forecastability of the realized variance of agricultural commodity prices: Evidence from a machine learning approach," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 785-801, July.
    12. Jesse Tack & Keith Coble & Barry Barnett, 2018. "Warming temperatures will likely induce higher premium rates and government outlays for the U.S. crop insurance program," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(5), pages 635-647, September.
    13. Hildegart Ahumada & Magdalena Cornejo, 2019. "How econometrics can help us understand the effects of climate change on crop yields: the case of soybeans," School of Government Working Papers wp_gob_2019_2, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    14. Yaling Li & Fujin Yi & Yanjun Wang & Richard Gudaj, 2019. "The Value of El Niño-Southern Oscillation Forecasts to China’s Agriculture," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-23, August.
    15. Sinha Roy,Sutirtha & Van Der Weide,Roy, 2022. "Poverty in India Has Declined over the Last Decade But Not As Much As Previously Thought," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9994, The World Bank.

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    Keywords

    Crop Production/Industries; Environmental Economics and Policy; Production Economics;
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