Conference Agenda

Are firms adapting to climate change? Rational, forward-looking firms should make self-protective investments, but market imperfections in low- and middle-income countries may constrain firms' ability to adapt. We study this question by combining the World Bank Enterprise Survey with spatially granular weather data to estimate temperature response functions for nearly 160,000 firms in 134 nations over a 15-year period. Small and medium-size firms in low- and low-middle income countries are most vulnerable, with revenues declining by 12% in years with temperatures 0.5C above historical averages. The impact is equally strong for manufacturing and services firms. We test different impact channels and find that the effect is channeled through lower labor productivity and wages. Heat-sensitive sectors and less resilient firms are hit harder, corroborating causal interpretation. Unique firm-level information on policy constraints including limited financing, burdensome regulations, and unsafe conditions suggest that such factors raise adaptation costs, undermining economic resilience to climate change.

The paper investigates the major climate-related risks for households in the EU by quantifying the relationship between a set of selected climate-hazards metrics, households’ income by source, and sector-specific expenditures, capturing both the climate induced cost of impacts and adaptation measures. The paper analyses the distribution of climate change costs by type (income source- and good/service expenditure-related) across regions (NUTS1 level) and socioeconomic characteristics of households (poor, medium income and rich households). In addition, the implications of climate change costs on income distribution and risk of poverty are investigated. Strong vulnerability of EU households emerges especially in the Southern EU.

This study investigates the impact of climate change on cognitive load and adaptation to climate change, e.g. investments or migration intentions, among rural populations in Senegal. Drawing on a sample of 4,755 men aged 18-40 across 145 villages, we employ interventions to induce cognitive load through priming on climate and financial uncertainties. Our findings suggest nuanced effects, with climate load heightening climate-related worries and financial load increasing concerns related to finances. However, these effects did not result in a reduction in cognitive resources. Instead, inducing financial load influenced decision-making by increasing external migration intentions and influencing investment preferences, while inducing climate load impacted adaptation decision-making. Our study contributes to understanding the intricate relationship between cognitive load, decision-making under constraints, and

the nexus between climate change, adaptation, and migration.

This study examines how recurring droughts impact farm size and land concentration in France, using detailed panel data from 1970 to 2020 across 715 small agricultural regions. We analyze multiple land concentration metrics, including average and median farm size, the Gini index, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), to assess structural changes in landholding patterns. To quantify drought exposure, we employ both absolute Soil Wetness Index (SWI) and relative (z-score) measures of soil moisture, capturing variations in drought frequency and intensity over different time horizons (one year, two years, and five years). Our results show that an additional month of severe drought increases average and median farm size by approximately 2 hectares in the short term, with a smaller but persistent effect over five years. We identify two key mechanisms driving land concentration: (i) declining agricultural land prices, which facilitate land acquisitions by larger farms, and (ii) reductions in the number of farmers, as smaller or financially vulnerable farmers exit the sector, accelerating farm concentration. These results highlight the long-term market

and structural consequences of climatic shocks and provide valuable insights for designing climate-resilient agricultural policies aimed at mitigating the risks of land inequality and excessive farm concentration.