The Impacts of Climate Change on Small Farm's Production: The Application of Ricardian Approach

• Main Authors: Huang, Ying-Chen, 黃盈甄
• Other Authors: Wey, Kwo-Dong
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/07362266051595648331

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 經濟學系 === 97 === This study employs the Ricardian Approach derived from Mendelsohn, Nordhaus and Shaw’s model (1994) to estimate the impact of climate change on the sales of Taiwan’s agricultural industry. It is assumed that both of agricultural product and input markets are perfect competition. And the Taiwanese economy plays as a complete adaptor when the climate status is changed. But, this study modifies the MNS static model (1994) to a dynamic optimal control model. And, this study also defines the ratio of CO2 concentration as an endogenous variable. It is proved that the theoretical model has a stable solution, thus, the agricultural damage function can be derived. The empirical model defines 11 different independent variables that include average temperatures and total rainfalls for four seasons, population density, average farmers income, and cultivated area. The only dependent variable is the sales of agricultural products. The panel data for four different areas (north, central, south, and east) of Taiwan from 1984 to 2003 are selected from Taiwan Agriculture Report. This study employs cross section fixed effect model and coefficient covariance adjusting method to evaluate the damage function of climate change for Taiwan agricultural industry. This study concludes that the increase of winter’s average temperature and total rainfalls, average farmers income and cultivated area have positive effects for the sales of agricultural products. But, the other independent variables have negative effects for the sales of agricultural products. By applying the A1B status, that are the highly economic growth, efficient technological innovation, and slowly population growth, of IPCC model, this study simulates the change of CO2 concentration rate in the near future. And the assessment of the change of agricultural products sales can be evaluated. It is concluded that the rise of four seasons’ average temperatures have significant negative impacts on the sales of Taiwanese agricultural products. But, the increases of four seasons’ total rainfalls only have slightly positive effects for agricultural products. Thus, this study believes that the severe climate change definitely has negative impact on Taiwanese agricultural industry.