Study on the asymmetrical impact of climate change on Myanmar’s agriculture in the short and long runs

Purpose: Climate change negatively affects agriculture and food security, and jeopardizes Myanmar's agriculture, which is vital to ensure food security, rural livelihoods, and the economy. This study explores the asymmetric impacts of climate change on Myanmar's agricultural sector. Design/methodology/approach: We utilize the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach for the years 1991–2020, the Wald test to validate the asymmetric relationship between climate change and agriculture, and the FMOLS and DOLS approaches to confirm the validity of the outcomes. Findings: Our findings reveal that temperature has a positive impact on Myanmar's agriculture, whereas rainfall and CO2 have negative effects over the long and short terms. Evidently, decreasing temperatures more favorably impact agriculture than increasing temperatures, while increasing rainfall more negatively impacts agriculture than decreasing rainfall. Increasing carbon emissions have a more detrimental effect on agriculture than decreasing them. Research limitations/implications: We gathered data over periods longer than 30 years to provide more robust findings. However, owing to data limitations, such as missing values or unavailability, the study period spans from 1991 to 2020. Originality/value: This study contributes to the existing literature on the asymmetric effects of climatic and non-climatic factors on agriculture. It is the first study in Myanmar to use the NARDL approach to measuring the effects of climate change on both the agricultural gross production index and value, providing robust findings.