IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/122600.html

Aggregate Temperature Measures and the Overestimation of the Impact of Global Warming on Crop Yield

Author

Listed:
  • Huang, Kaixing
  • Zhang, Peng

Abstract

Existing studies generally use ``aggregate'' temperature measures, such as mean temperature, degree-days, temperature bins, and piece-wise linear function within the growing season, to estimate the impact of global warming on crop yield. These temperature measures blend temperatures from different phenological stages of crop growth and thus implicitly assume that temperatures are additively substitutable within the growing season. However, this assumption contrasts with agronomic knowledge that crops are more sensitive to temperatures in certain phenological stages. Utilizing a unique site-level data on the detailed phenological stages of major crops in China, combined with crop production data and daily weather data, we develop an econometric model with stage-specific temperature measures. We then compare our estimates with models using traditional aggregate temperature measures, and find that adopting an aggregate temperature measure could overestimate the damage of global warming on crop yield up to two times that estimated using stage-specific temperature measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Huang, Kaixing & Zhang, Peng, 2024. "Aggregate Temperature Measures and the Overestimation of the Impact of Global Warming on Crop Yield," MPRA Paper 122600, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:122600
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/122600/1/MPRA_paper_122600.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marshall Burke & Kyle Emerick, 2016. "Adaptation to Climate Change: Evidence from US Agriculture," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 106-140, August.
    2. Chen, Shuai & Gong, Binlei, 2021. "Response and adaptation of agriculture to climate change: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    3. Richard M. Adams, 1989. "Global Climate Change and Agriculture: An Economic Perspective," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 71(5), pages 1272-1279.
    4. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric Njuki & Boris E Bravo-Ureta & Christopher J O’Donnell, 2018. "A new look at the decomposition of agricultural productivity growth incorporating weather effects," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-21, February.
    2. Yu, Le & Chen, Yuan & Zhang, Siqi, 2025. "Climate change and staple grain acreage: Regional adaptation in China's agricultural cluster," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    3. Ding, Yugang & Xu, Jiangmin, 2023. "Global vulnerability of agricultural commodities to climate risk: Evidence from satellite data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 669-687.
    4. Lyu, Zhuoyang & Yu, Li & Liu, Chen & Ma, Tiemeng, 2024. "When temperatures matter: Extreme heat and labor share," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    5. Xun Su & Minpeng Chen, 2022. "Econometric Approaches That Consider Farmers’ Adaptation in Estimating the Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-23, October.
    6. Moustafa Feriga & Nancy Lozano Gracia & Pieter Serneels, 2025. "The Impact of Climate Change on Work: Lessons for Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 40(1), pages 104-146.
    7. Hai‐Anh H. Dang & Stephane Hallegatte & Trong‐Anh Trinh, 2024. "Does global warming worsen poverty and inequality? An updated review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1873-1905, December.
    8. Huang, K., 2018. "How Large is the Potential Economic Benefit of Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change?," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277238, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Li, Chengzheng & Cong, Jiajia & Gu, Haiying & Zhang, Peng, 2021. "The non-linear effect of daily weather on economic performance: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    10. Kaixing Huang & Nicholas Sim, 2021. "Adaptation May Reduce Climate Damage in Agriculture by Two Thirds," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 47-71, February.
    11. Jin, Hao & Chen, Dengke & Xu, Shu, 2025. "Climate change and rural income inequality: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    12. Moustafa Feriga & Nancy Lozano Gracia & Pieter Serneels, 2025. "The Impact of Climate Change on Work: Lessons for Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 40(1), pages 104-146.
    13. Mélanie Gittard, 2024. "Impacts of repetitive droughts and the key role of experience : evidence from Nigeria," PSE Working Papers halshs-04685420, HAL.
    14. Francois Cohen & Matthieu Glachant & Magnus Soderberg, 2025. "The autonomous adaptation of US homes to changing temperatures," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 25(6), pages 917-935.
    15. Mélanie Gittard, 2024. "Impacts of repetitive droughts and the key role of experience : evidence from Nigeria," CIRED Working Papers halshs-04685420, HAL.
    16. Mérel, Pierre & Paroissien, Emmanuel & Gammans, Matthew, 2024. "Sufficient statistics for climate change counterfactuals," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Lé Mathias, 2022. "The adaptation of economies to climate change: lessons from the economic research [L’adaptation des économies au changement climatique : les enseignements tirés de la recherche économique]," Bulletin de la Banque de France, Banque de France, issue 239.
    18. Hsing-Hsiang Huang & Michael R. Moore, 2018. "Farming under Weather Risk: Adaptation, Moral Hazard, and Selection on Moral Hazard," NBER Chapters, in: Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior, pages 77-124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Cristina Cattaneo & Emanuele Massetti, 2019. "Does Harmful Climate Increase Or Decrease Migration? Evidence From Rural Households In Nigeria," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(04), pages 1-36, November.
    20. Kalkuhl, Matthias & Wenz, Leonie, 2020. "The impact of climate conditions on economic production. Evidence from a global panel of regions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:122600. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.