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Doctoral thesis, 2021

Essays on heterogeneity and uncertainty in climate policy and development

Gatiso, Tsegaye Ginbo

Abstract

This thesis consists of four papers focusing on the role of heterogeneity and uncertainty in the context of climate change policy and agricultural development. By using intra-household data, the first paper illustrates differences in spouses’ perception of climatic risks and its effect on household’s adoption of climate change adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa. In Kenya, female spouses’ perception of climatic risks increases the household’s likelihood of adopting climate adaptation strategies, whereas males’ perception has no statistically significant effects. The adoption of livestock-based strategies for climate change adaptation is positively associated with both female and male spouses’ perceptions of climatic risks in Uganda, whereas it has a negative relationship with females’ perception in Tanzania. Moreover, both male and female spouses’ perceptions of climatic risks have positive associations with households’ likelihood of adopting crop-based strategies for climate change adaptation in Uganda and Tanzania. The second paper assesses how the impacts of climate change vary across crops and across agro-ecosystems in Ethiopia using the household-level panel data. The empirical results show that climate change will induce an increase in coffee and teff yields at high altitudes while it will decrease coffee yield at low altitudes, and barley, maize, and wheat yield at high altitudes by the years 2041-2060. The third paper provides a systematic review of literature that uses a real-options approach for the analysis of investment in climate adaptation and mitigation actions. The review shows the need of future research incorporating climate uncertainty, risk preferences, and decisions-makers’ strategic interactions. The fourth paper models farmers’ opportunity to relocate coffee farms to higher altitudes in Ethiopia as climate adaptation strategy. The results illustrate how the uncertainty in net returns and high establishment costs may induce farmers to postpone their adaptation actions. The findings of papers presented in this thesis point to the need to take into account the differences in individual behaviours, vulnerabilities and uncertainties in designing climate and development policies.

Keywords

Climate adaptation; Climate mitigation; Gender; Sustainable agriculture

Published in

Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae
2021, number: 2021:29
ISBN: 978-91-7760-736-6, eISBN: 978-91-7760-737-3
Publisher: Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Climate Research
    Agricultural Science
    Economics

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/111577