ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the extant literature on the impacts of climate changes on agriculture, focusing on studies that have been conducted on India. The empirical evidence on the effects of climate change on agriculture has been mixed: while some studies find evidence of adverse impacts, others report evidence of positive effects. Applying non-parametric median regression techniques to state-level time-series data on average yield of rice and wheat, and on temperature and rainfall from 1968 to 2001, the present study further investigates the impacts of changes in these climate variables on rice and wheat yields. The results indicate that rising temperature has a significant negative impact and rising rainfall variability has a significant positive impact on the average rice yield. Furthermore, an increase in temperature variability over the crop year appears to have a significant positive impact on wheat yield.
