Linking CO2 Emissions and Crop Production: Empirical Evidence from South Asian Countries
Abstract It is need of the hour to investigate the impacts of climate parameters on agricultural production in a developing region of South Asia. Therefore, this work attempts to explore the climatic indicators on agricultural production for selected South Asian countries over the annual data of 1961–2016. This study estimates the impacts of rainfall, temperature, rural population, land under cereal production, and CO2 emissions on agricultural production. For empirical analysis, we applied second-generation unit root tests. After examining the order of integration of time series, we check for the co-integration among the variables. Before the co-integration test, we check for cross-section dependence among the variables. CD and LM tests confirm the existence of cross-section dependence. Afterward, we apply Westerlud co-integration test to confirm the strong association among the variables. Further, we applied two methods for long-run coefficients of independent variables. DOLS and FMOLS tests were applied to cross-check the findings. Our findings show that rural population and rainfall are negatively associated with agricultural production. Moreover, temperature, land area under cereal production, and CO2 emissions are positively associated with agricultural production. Our findings shed light on some important policy implications for South Asian countries.