Cross-sectional Statistical Analyses of Regional Climate Effects: Ricardian Analysis and Extensions

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Lippert
• Subject Area: Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology
• Term: from 2010 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 171243916

This project aims at the improvement of methods that use cross-sectional data for the assessment of regional climate change impacts on agriculture. Firstly, reported land rental prices of the German districts will be explained by means of traditional Ricardian analysis using advanced spatial statistics. For the first time, different approaches to control for the districts’ soil qualities will be compared. Secondly, relying on multinomial logit models we will try to explain the climate dependency of German land use structures in order to understand how farmers adapt to different climate settings. Thirdly, the impact of climate change will be assessed entering spatially adapted regional climate forecasts into the traditional Ricardian models and into the “structural models”. Since a major shortcoming of climate change impact assessment based on Ricardian analysis consists in its disregard of adjustment costs, finally, a typology of corresponding transaction costs will be elaborated. In the light of this typology present and predicted land use patterns and resulting adaptation needs will be analysed. Regions where the needs to adapt and related costs will be presumably relatively important will be identified.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants