Climate change-related shocks, assets and welfare outcomes in South Africa
Climate change-related shocks, assets and welfare outcomes in South Africa
复制标题
南非与气候变化相关的冲击、资产和福利结果
DOI：
10.1111/saje.12368
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发表时间：
2024
影响因子：
1.3
通讯作者：
Díaz Pabón F
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Díaz Pabón F
气候变化及其后果在世界各地构成重大的经济和社会挑战。干旱频繁困扰南非，最近一次严重干旱发生在2015/2016年。然而，很少有实证研究估计气候相关冲击对南非个人福祉的影响。在本文中，我们调查了2015/2016年干旱对个人福利的影响。我们还研究了获得资产是否有助于减轻气候变化相关冲击对个人福利的负面影响。为了估计干旱对个人福利结果的影响，天气数据与国民收入动态研究数据集的个人面板数据相结合。我们使用气象卫星的天气数据来衡量全国的干旱程度，我们使用真实的人均消费支出来衡量个人福利。我们的估计结果表明，2015/2016年的干旱对南非的真实的人均消费支出没有显著影响。我们假设，这部分是由于劳动力市场的结构，很少有人依靠自给农业，加上社会赠款和汇款是消费分配底层人民的主要收入来源。使用人体测量作为替代福利指标，我们发现生活在干旱影响地区的儿童的身高体重测量值低于生活在未受干旱影响地区的儿童。研究结果表明，当粮食价格因干旱而上涨时，家庭可能选择了福利成本高的应对技术，例如减少食物消费的数量和质量，同时保持整体支出不变。
Climate change and its consequences pose significant economic and social challenges around the world. Droughts have frequently afflicted South Africa, with the most recent severe drought occurring in 2015/2016. However, there has been little empirical research estimating the impact of climate‐related shocks on individual well‐being in South Africa. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the 2015/2016 drought on individual welfare. We also examine whether access to assets helps to mitigate the negative effects of climate change‐related shocks on individual welfare. For estimating the impact of droughts on individual welfare outcomes, weather data are combined with individual panel data from the National Income Dynamics Study dataset. We use weather data from meteorological satellites to measure the extent of droughts across the country, and we measure individual welfare using real per capita consumption expenditure. Our estimation results show that the 2015/2016 drought had no significant effect on real per capita consumption expenditure in South Africa. We hypothesise that this is due in part to the structure of the labour market, with few people relying on subsistence farming, combined with social grants and remittances being the primary source of income for people at the bottom of the consumption distribution. Using anthropometric measurements as an alternative welfare indicator, we find that children living in drought‐affected areas had lower weight‐for‐height measurements than those living in areas not affected by the drought. The findings imply that when food prices increased as a result of the drought, households may have chosen welfare‐costly coping techniques such as reducing the quantity and quality of food consumed while keeping overall expenditure the same.