Research

Abstract: We study the effect of temperature on students’ performance and how changes in the incentives to study alter this impact in the context of high-school exit exams in Colombia. We show that temperature increases have a negative impact on exam scores, particularly among urban students. Conversely, rural students exhibit slightly positive effects. Leveraging time-use data, we find evidence of individuals in rural areas responding to increases in temperature by reallocating time towards off-farm activities, which are human-capital intensive. Additionally, the announcement of a national scholarship program, which introduced exogenous variation in exam stakes, reveals that heightened student effort exacerbates the temperature’s impact on scores. In particular, an interquartile change in the exposure to this program increases the impact of temperature on exam scores by 11.9%. This underscores the intricate relationship between incentive-based policies and the challenge of rising temperatures. As global temperatures continue to rise, understanding this dynamic is crucial for informing effective educational policy.

Abstract: The adoption of higher-nutrient grass varieties, such as Brachiaria, offers long-term economic benefits for ranchers while enhancing soil health and pasture productivity in Latin America’s lowland climates. Despite widespread adoption, the field-level impacts remain largely unexplored. This study, focusing on Colombia’s largest beef-producing regions, analyzes how the transition to introduced pastures affects productivity, revenue, and land requirements for ranching. Our findings reveal that 66% of pasture acreage among sampled ranchers is now comprised of these introduced varieties. Factors like proximity to technology centers, historical violence, and shocks to transportation and trade hinder adoption. Transitioning from native savannas to introduced pastures significantly boosts productivity, particularly when paired with practices such as weed control and fertilization, although yield gains fall short of agronomic trial expectations. Overall, the increased revenue per hectare underscores the need to promote introduced-pasture-based systems, especially given the limitations of intensive silvopastoral methods.

Abstract: I explore the impacts of heat on crop yields and crop production decisions among sorghum farmers in Kansas, U.S. This analysis addresses a two-part question often overlooked in climate econometrics. Specifically, I examine whether (a) the unbalanced nature of yield panel data likely reflects strategic behavior by farmers when deciding whether to grow sorghum, and (b) whether this leads to estimation bias from sample selection. My preliminary results suggest that (1) a farm’s decision to produce sorghum in a given year is likely a climate-sensitive response, indicating an underlying climate adaptation strategy, and (2) accounting for this response as a driver of sample selection results in lower estimates of heat impacts on yields compared to the existing literature. While some findings are sensitive to assumptions about the precision of weather expectations, these results highlight the need to further consider how farm data discontinuity in long-term panels can affect the consistency of traditional fixed-effect estimates.