Using the Ricardian Technique to estimate the impacts of climate change on Crop Farming in Pakistan

This study uses the Ricardian valuation technique to estimate the effect of climate change on the crop farming sector in Pakistan. As a main contribution this paper uses a large household level dataset comprising 3336 farming entities to analyze long-term climate impacts on farm net crop revenues. In particular temperature increases in key growing seasons can be harmful. Annual losses for crop farming ranging from 100-200US$can be expected. Given an average crop net income of 450US$ per hectare, these impacts can be devastating for farmers. The climate impacts will vary across geographic regions. Temperature is found to be the detrimental factor for farming in Pakistan. Precipitation changes seem to have a rather negligible effect.Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Analysing agricultural productivity growth in a framework of institutional quality

This paper addresses the question whether the institutional environment of transition countries in Eastern Europe affects productivity growth in the agricultural sector. Situated in a neoclassical growth framework, a dynamic panel model for the period 1996-2005 provides evidence that poor institutional quality leads to a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth. Productivity growth is limited by a high degree of corruption, which is of particular importance given that corruption has been proven to be most prevalent in Eastern European countries. Moreover, agricultural productivity in countries where privatisation and transferability of land is restricted is found to grow at a slower rate than countries supporting market-oriented land reforms. Interestingly, the results suggest that a high degree of openness leads to a loss in agricultural productivity, suggesting that timing and sequencing of trade reforms matter. An improvement of the poor institutional quality is thus of central importance to accelerate productivity growth in Eastern European countries. --Eastern Europe,Transition,Productivity growth