Climatic Tail Events, Ecosystems & Agriculture: Evidence from Wildlife Die-Offs

Climate change intensifies extreme weather, disrupting ecosystems and agricultural services like pollination and pest control. We propose panel fixed-effects regressions exploiting flying fox heatwave die-offs in Australia and bat cold snaps in Texas as natural experiments. A triple-differences design compares shocked locations, timing, and affected versus unaffected crops, addressing a gap in causal evidence on tail risks to food systems.

“Climate change is not only shifting average temperatures. It is also changing the frequency and severity of extreme events. As concerns about global food systems and agricultural productivity grow amid geopolitical tensions, it is important to understand the less visible forms of natural capital that affect food production. Our project studies one such channel: how extreme weather can disrupt the pollination and natural pest-control services that local wildlife provides to agriculture.”

Guy Pincus, PhD Student in Economics, London Business School