Adaptation to Climate Change Among the Rural Poor

Abstract

The economic consequences of climate change hinge on adaptation among the poor, and in particular those agricultural households whose livelihoods directly depend on the environment. I examine this topic in Bangladesh, ground-zero for global warming's most devastating impacts. In Chapter One, I dive into the microfoundations of climate adaptation by examining the causes and consequences of environmental beliefs—a key primitive in the decision-making process. Rice farmers' misperceptions of their soil's salinity stem from a fundamental identification problem they face in learning about their local environment, with substantial consequences for technology adoption and profits. In Chapter Two, I study the role of adaptation in mitigating the macroeconomic damage of floods, the world's most common natural disaster. Equipped with a new satellite-derived measure of inundation, I show that floods push labor out of agriculture, spur migration, and increase schooling, and I find evidence of experience-driven adaptation that mitigates a third of floods' economic harm. In Chapter Three, I explore how both households and communities cope with the spatially covarying shocks characteristic of environmental threats. Amid more concentrated agricultural risk, households self-insure through temporary migration—an adaptation margin which ultimately increases participation in village risk sharing networks.