Quantifying the Temperature Effects on China's Total Agricultural Output

We pair a county-level panel of annual agricultural production with daily weather outcomes to measure the effects of temperature fluctuations on total agricultural output value of farming, forestry, animal husbandry and fishing in China. We find four main results: (i) the total agricultural output decreases with higher spring, summer and winter temperatures and increases with higher fall temperatures; (ii) temperature affects agricultural output mainly through its impact on agricultural total factor productivity; (iii) higher temperatures increase the use of several agricultural inputs, including fertilizer, machinery, total planted acres and total irrigated acres; and (iv) we project that China’s aggregate agricultural output will fall annually by 6.5-17.4% during the mid-21st century under the warming scenarios considered by the global climate model UKMO-HadCM3, equivalent to a monetary loss of CNY 147.6-395.0 billion in 2008 values.