Adaptation to natural disasters through the agricultural land rental market: evidence from Bangladesh

We examine the effects of natural disasters on agricultural households that make rent-in or rent-out transactions. Our econometric approach accounts for the effects of disaster exposure on the adjustments in the quantity of operated land and agricultural income conditional on the land quantity adjustments. Using a household survey data set from Bangladesh, we find that farmers were able to partially ameliorate their losses from exposure to disasters by optimizing their operational farm size through these land rental transactions. Land rental market may be an effective instrument in reducing disaster risks, and postdisaster policies should consider this role more systematically. (JEL Q24, Q54

The impact of climate legislation on trade-related carbon emissions 1996–2018

We analyse the international impact on carbon emissions from national climate legislation in 111 countries over 1996–2018. We estimate trade-related carbon leakage, or net carbon imports, as the difference between consumption and production emissions. Legislation has had a significant negative and roughly similar impact on both consumption and production emissions. The net impact on trade-related emissions is therefore not statistically significant, neither in the short term (laws passed in the last 3 years) nor the long term (laws older than 3 years). We find a significant negative long-term impact on domestic emissions from laws passed by trade partners. This latter specification corresponds to the traditional definition of carbon leakage. Overall, we conclude that there has been no detrimental effect of climate legislation on international emissions

Private disaster expenditures by rural Bangladeshi households: evidence from survey data

This paper investigates household’s private expenditures to cope with the harmful losses of climate change and disasters. Using household-level survey data from Bangladesh, this paper finds that disaster-affected rural Bangladeshi households allocate between $499 and$1076 in disaster-related expenditures. Such expenditures are always greater than their relevant precautionary savings, implying that those households may debt-finance their defensive measures. Households with greater precautionary savings spend more: a 100% increase in precautionary savings can increase disaster expenditures by 5%. Moreover, there are considerable regional heterogeneities in household’s disaster expenditures. Increased public sector allocations in addition to carefully designed affordable market-based financing instruments can potentially ease the pressure on disaster-affected households in their fight against the harms of climate change and disaster

Global lessons from climate change legislation and litigation

There is no country in the world that does not have at least one law or policy dealing with climate change. The most prolific countries have well over 20, and globally there are 1,800 such laws. Some of them are executive orders or policies issued by governments, others are legislative acts passed by parliament. The judiciary has been involved in 1,500 court cases that concern climate change (more than 1,100 of which were in the United States). We use Climate Change Laws of the World, a publicly accessible database, to analyze patterns and trends in climate change legislation and litigation over the past 30 years. The data reveal that global legislative activity peaked around 2009–14, well before the Paris Agreement. Accounting for effectiveness in implementation and the length of time laws have been in place, the United Kingdom and South Korea are the most comprehensive legislators among G20 countries and Spain within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Climate change legislation is less of a partisan issue than is commonly assumed: the number of climate laws passed by governments of the left, center, and right is roughly proportional to their time in office. We also find that legislative activity decreases in times of economic difficulty. Where courts have gotten involved, judges outside the United States have ruled in favor of enhanced climate protection in about half of the cases (US judges are more inclined to rule against climate protection)

Adaptation to natural disasters through the agricultural land rental market : evidence from Bangladesh

We examine the effects of natural disaster exposure on agricultural households who simultaneously make rent-in and rent-out decisions in the land rental market. Our econometric approach accounts for the effects of disaster exposure both on the adjustments in the quantity of operated land (i.e. extensive margin) and agricultural yield conditional on the land quantity adjustments (i.e. intensive margin), based on selectivity-corrected samples of rental market participants. Employing a household survey dataset from Bangladesh, we find that farmers were able to ameliorate their losses from exposure to disasters by optimizing their operational farm size through participation in the land rental market. These results are robust to alternative specifications. This suggests that the land rental market may be an effective instrument reducing disaster risk, and post-disaster policies should take into account this role more systematically

The impact of climate legislation on trade-related carbon emissions 1997-2017

We present empirical evidence of the international emissions impact from climate change legislation in 98 countries between 1997 and 2017, using data from Climate Change Laws of the World. Unlike traditional measures of carbon leakage, we focus on net carbon imports, that is, the difference between consumption and production emissions. Using different estimation techniques, we estimate the impact on carbon intensity of two legislation variables, recent legislation (passed in the last 3 years) and older legislation (passed more than 3 years ago). We find that recent legislation reduces production emissions more than consumption emissions, while older laws have a bigger impact on consumption emissions. The combined effect of these changes on net carbon imports is very small. Overall, we find no evidence that domestic climate legislation has increased international carbon leakage over the past two decades. Indeed, in high-income countries the longrun leakage rate may even be negative

Income diversification and income inequality : household responses to the 2013 floods in Pakistan

In this paper we investigate the economic response of rural households to the 2013 floods in Pakistan. The case study illustrates the important roles of labor supply adjustments and income diversification in coping with climate-related risks. Using detailed household panel data that were collected before and after the 2013 floods, we find that the exposure to flood results in lower participation in farm activities. The overall effects are decreased diversification in the sources of income and ambiguous reduction in inequality which is associated with overall declines in incomes. These changes could be locked in if affected households do not have sufficient assets to resume farming. The results suggest intervention points for public policy, related to labor mobility and access to capital

Do natural disasters change savings and employment choices? Evidence from Bangladesh and Pakistan

The paper investigates the economic response of households to natural disasters in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and in particular, to what extent households adjust their income, employment strategies and savings in response to floods and storms. It discusses policy implications in terms of developing non-farm employment opportunities to reduce future harm, and financing economic migration to reduce income vulnerability. In Bangladesh, farmers move away from farm to nonfarm employment as a coping strategy, whereas nonfarmers increase their off-farm labor supply. Although farmers in Pakistan move away from agriculture as an immediate response to disasters, within a year they return to farming.UK's Department of International Development (DFID