| Economists are relying on agronomic concepts to construct weather or climate independent variables and improve the reliability and efficiency of econometric models of climate change impact on U.S. agriculture. The use of cumulative heat measures in agronomy (growing degree-days), has recently served as a basis for the introduction of plurimonthly calendar heat variables in these models. However, season-long weather conditions seem at odds with conventional agronomic wisdom that emphasizes crucial differences in crop stage sensitivity to environmental stress. In this paper I show that weather variables matched to key corn development stages provide an enhanced and more stable fit than their calendar counterparts. More importantly, the proposed... |
