Agricultural productivity and climate shocks in developing countries

This dissertation contains three chapters studying factors limiting agricultural productivity in developing countries. Climate change is a significant threat for the developing world countries, and agricultural households experience changes in their productive context, forcing them to adapt to the new environment. Governments and international organizations have been coordinating their efforts to reduce and temper the effects of these shocks by investing in infrastructure, in the development of markets and favoring the adoption of new production practices. The overall goal of this thesis is to understand how weather shocks affect agricultural productivity and how adaptation and mitigation work in the context of climate change. In the first chapter, I compile a novel dataset on irrigation dams to study the role of irrigation on mitigating the effect of climate shocks on civil conflict in Indonesia. In the second chapter, I use a novel combination of primary panel data and crop simulations to decompose farmers’ yield gaps to measure how much of the gap is driven by risk aversion. In the third paper, I study the impact of a demand shock on agricultural inputs markets in Zambia.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Agricultural & Applied Econ

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Gatti, Nicolas

Contributors dc:contributor

• Baylis, Kathy
• Crost, Benjamin
• Winter-Nelson, Alex
• Heckelei, Thomas

• agricultural productivity
• climate shocks
• conflict
• yield gaps
• market access

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2020 Nicolas Gatti

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108133

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/108133