We analyze a provincial-scale dataset of winter wheat yield, together with finescale daily weather outcomes from 1979 to 2011, to assess the responses of winter wheat yield in China to temperature fluctuations. Contrary to the majority of the previous literature, we find that winter wheat yield in China responded positively to higher nighttime temperature Tmin, with the positive Tmin effects most significant in the northern China winter wheat region. Consistent with the previous studies, winter wheat yield in China exhibited negative responses to higher daytime temperature Tmax. As a result of these opposing temperature effects on yield, the net economic impact of weather variations on China’s winter wheat sector is uncertain and is sensitive to specifications and data. Average winter wheat yield is projected to decline by 5.3%–7.0% by 2050 under the global climate model HadGEM2-ES and by 2.0%–3.4% under the NorESM1-M model.

In developing countries, anti-poverty programs are often implemented by local governments. However, due to the limitation of fiscal resources, the amount of anti-poor expenditure by the local government is generally less than what is needed for the poor. In this paper, we investigate whether an increase in the fiscal resources of local government will lead to an increase in anti-poor fiscal expenditure using county-level Chinese data. Using the fixed effect model, we show that local governments will put more fiscal resources into the minimum living standard guarantee (MLSG) system if they receive more intergovernmental transfers from high-level governments, but this effect only exists in urban areas. Moreover, the off-budget fiscal revenue does not affect the anti-poverty expenditure, both in rural and urban areas.

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