Weather and death in India. Burgess, R., Deschenes, O., Donaldson, D., & Greenstone, M. 2011. ![Weather and death in India [pdf]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/pdf.svg "pdf")
Paper abstract bibtex Weather fluctuations have shaped the economic activities of humans for centuries. And in poor, developing countries, where large swathes of the population continue to depend on basic agriculture, the weather continues to be a key determinant of production and employment. This raises the possibility that weather shocks may translate into increases in mortality. To investigate this possibility we examine the relationship between weather and death across Indian districts between 1957 and 2000. Our estimates imply that hot days (and deficient rainfall) cause large and statistically significant increases in mortality within a year of their occurrence. The effects are only observed for rural populations and not for urban populations, and it is only hot days that occur during the period when crops are growing in the fields that account for these effects. We also show that hot and dry weather depresses agricultural output and wages, and raises agricultural prices, in rural areas—but that similar effects are absent in urban areas. Using the coefficients from our analysis of Indian districts combined with two leading models of climate change we demonstrate that the mortality increasing impacts of global warming are likely to be far more strongly felt by rural Indians relative to their counterparts in urban India or the US.
@misc{burgess_weather_2011,
title = {Weather and death in {India}},
url = {https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/upload/3db6cd07-abb7-416e-ac4a-5e8b58024cc0_burgess.pdf},
abstract = {Weather fluctuations have shaped the economic activities of humans for centuries. And in poor, developing countries, where large swathes of the population continue to depend on basic agriculture, the weather continues to be a key determinant of production and employment. This raises the possibility that weather shocks may translate into increases in mortality. To investigate this possibility we examine the relationship between weather and death across Indian districts between 1957 and 2000. Our estimates imply that hot days (and deficient rainfall) cause large and statistically significant increases in mortality within a year of their occurrence. The effects are only observed for rural populations and not for urban populations, and it is only hot days that occur during the period when crops are growing in the fields that account for these effects. We also show that hot and dry weather depresses agricultural output and wages, and raises agricultural prices, in rural areas—but that similar effects are absent in urban areas. Using the coefficients from our analysis of Indian districts combined with two leading models of climate change we demonstrate that the mortality increasing impacts of global warming are likely to be far more strongly felt by rural Indians relative to their counterparts in urban India or the US.},
author = {Burgess, Robin and Deschenes, Oliver and Donaldson, Dave and Greenstone, Michael},
year = {2011},
keywords = {KR, Untagged},
}
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