A Ricardian Analysis of the Impact of Climate Change on European Agriculture

This research estimates the impact of climate on European agriculture using a continental scale Ricardian analysis. Climate, soil, geography and regional socio-economic variables are matched with farm level data from 37,612 farms across Western Europe. We demonstrate that a median quantile regression outperforms OLS given farm level data. The results suggest that European farms are slightly more sensitive to warming than American farms with losses from -8% to -44% by 2100 depending on the climate scenario. Farms in Southern Europe are predicted to be particularly sensitive, suffering losses of -9% to -13% per degree Celsius.