Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
气候对经济增长的影响：结构异质性与状态依赖型适应的证据
Climate impacts on economic growth: Evidence on structural heterogeneity and state-dependent adaptation
摘要
Although climate change affects countries unevenly, the structural sources of this heterogeneity and the effectiveness of adaptation remain incompletely understood. This study develops a semi-parametric varying-coefficient framework that extends the anomaly-based climate–growth model of Kahn et al. (2021), allowing the economic effects of temperature anomalies to vary continuously with countries' structural characteristics. Using an unbalanced panel of 177 countries spanning 1965–2017, we examine six potential sources of heterogeneity and identify income, baseline temperature, and agricultural dependence as the primary structural determinants of climate vulnerability. The results reveal distinct nonlinear patterns across these structural dimensions. Climate impacts exhibit a piecewise-linear relationship with income, an inverted-smirk relationship with baseline temperature, and a threshold-like relationship with agricultural dependence. Extending the analysis to joint heterogeneity further demonstrates that the effectiveness of conventional adaptation strategies is inherently state dependent. Economic development reduces climate damages primarily in economies with relatively low agricultural dependence, whereas structural transformation is most effective in relatively high-income economies. By contrast, in persistently hot and highly agriculture-dependent economies, neither strategy alone is sufficient to substantially reduce climate damages. These findings suggest that effective climate policy should adopt differentiated adaptation strategies that account for countries' structural characteristics while integrating structural transformation with measures that reduce future climatic exposure.
中文摘要
尽管气候变化对各国的影晌并不均衡，但这种异质性的结构性来源以及适应措施的有效性仍未得到充分理解。本研究构建了一个半参数变系数框架，扩展了Kahn等（2021）基于异常值的气候—增长模型，使温度异常的经济效应能够随各国结构特征连续变化。基于1965—2017年177个国家的不平衡面板数据，我们考察了六种潜在的异质性来源，并识别出收入、基准温度和农业依赖度是气候脆弱性的主要结构性决定因素。结果表明，这些结构维度呈现出明显的非线性模式。气候影响与收入呈分段线性关系，与基准温度呈倒微笑关系，与农业依赖度呈类阈值关系。将分析扩展至联合异质性进一步表明，传统适应策略的有效性本质上具有状态依赖性。经济发展主要在农业依赖度相对较低的经济体中减少气候损害，而结构转型在相对高收入经济体中最为有效。相比之下，在持续高温且高度依赖农业的经济体中，单一策略均不足以大幅减少气候损害。这些发现表明，有效的气候政策应采取差异化适应策略，兼顾各国结构特征，同时将结构转型与减少未来气候暴露的措施相结合。