Climate Change, Agriculture, and Developing Countries: Does Adaptation Matter? Robert Mendelsohn • Ariel Dinar Because most developing countries depend heavily on agriculture, the effects of global warming on productive croplands are likely to threaten both the welfare of the population and the economic development of the countries. Tropical regions in the developing world are particularly vulnerable to potential damage from environmental changes because the poor soils that cover large areas of these regions already have made much of the land unusable for agriculture. Although agronomic simulation models predict that higher temperatures will reduce grain yields as the cool wheat-growing areas get warmer, they have not examined the possibility thatfarmers will adapt by making production decisions that are in their own best interests. A recent set of models examines cross-sectional evidence from India and Brazil and finds that even though the agricultural sector is sensitive to climate, individual farmers do take local climates into account, and their ability to do so will help mitigate the impacts of global warming. As scientists have become more confident that greenhouse gases will lead to a rise in global temperatures (Houghton and others 1996), developing countries have grown increasingly concerned about the economic impact of climate change on agriculture (Watson and others 1996). Most of the empirical work to date has focused on the industrial countries (Bruce, Lee, and Haites 1996; Reilly and others 1996), and al- though experts have extrapolated the results of their findings worldwide (see, for example, Fankhauser 1995, Tol 1995, or Pearce and others 1996), little research has focused specifically on the developing nations. To assess the likely effects of climate change, researchers have pursued three ap- proaches: agronomic models, agroeconomic models, and Ricardian models (which draw on the work by Ricardo showing that land values reflect a site's productivity). The World Btnk Research Observer. voL 14, no. 2 (August 1999), pp. 277-93. © 1999 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK 177 Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized