Working Papers

Xiaomeng Cui, Wangyang Lai, Tao Lin, 2025

R&R at American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

Abstract: This article estimates the effect of industrial water pollution on agricultural productivity and its further consequences on labor reallocation in China, using an empirical design that exploits a high-resolution hydrological network containing half-million rivers and 13,000 watersheds. We show that industrial wastewater discharged within 150 km upstream significantly increases local water pollution and reduces crop productivity. The negative externality is mainly caused by firms in the highly polluting industries, and the pollution-induced productivity shock is magnified if the local village is closer to the river, has lower groundwater availability, and receives less precipitation. Rural households increasingly engage in non-farm work and migration in response to the environmental shock, and their increase in non-farm income more than offsets their farm income loss. Further quantification indicates substantial overall costs on food production and highly distributional effects on labor reallocation. These findings uncover a novel channel through which industrial growth self-reinforces structural transformation.


Xiaomeng Cui, Zheng Zhong, 2025

Abstract: This paper studies how past experience of extreme heat induces crop innovation, new variety adoption, and their role in mitigating contemporaneous impacts of extreme heat on crop yields in China, where the government and public sector play a dominant role in the agricultural innovation system. Combining comprehensive administrative data on new crop varieties with high-resolution data on climate and agricultural production, our identification exploits the unique institutional setting in China and leverages meaningful variation across both crops and regions. We show that extreme heat significantly increases the making of new crop varieties and enhances the intensity of new variety adoption, and the heat-induced adoption of new varieties significantly lowers the detrimental impacts of extreme heat on crop yields. Further analyses suggest differential innovation incentives and performances across innovators. Although private firms innovate more, the varieties they developed appear to be less useful. Among public-sector innovators, universities and research institutions are most active and effective in heat-induced crop innovation.


Xiaomeng Cui, Zimao Xiao, 2025

Abstract: This paper provides new evidence of long-run climate change adaptation in US agriculture. Focusing on the past two decades, our long-difference estimates suggest only modest losses due to extreme heat even though conventional panel estimates still imply sizable heat damage. Our results indicate that emerging long-run adaptation since 2000 mitigates short-run heat impacts by more than two-thirds, contrasting with the minimal adaptation observed during earlier years. Heat-induced crop diversification, farm consolidation, input and practice adjustments, and technology adoption help explain the enhanced adaptability. However, the traditional Corn Belt shows lower adaptability than its periphery, possibly due to stronger path dependency. 


(previously circulated under the title of "Urban Electricity Powers Rural Farms: Evidence from China's First Adoption of Electric Irrigation")

Shiyu Bo, Xiaomeng Cui, Cong Liu, 2024

R&R at Journal of Economic History

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of agricultural technology on rural welfare in early twentieth-century China. In 1924, rural areas of Wujin county in Jiangsu province unexpectedly gained access to electric irrigation from a nearby urban power plant. Using county-level panel data from 1912 to 1933, we apply difference-in-differences analysis and the synthetic control method, finding positive effects on farmland values but no change in farm wages. Based on newly published household-by-crop-level data, we show that electric irrigation increased crop yields and the irrigated area for rice, the most water-sensitive crop, and reduced farm labor inputs.


Xiaomeng Cui, Zimao Xiao, 2024

Abstract: Rising temperatures reduce crop production and threaten future food security. While previous studies predict significant yield declines for major crops under future climates, they often overlook long-run technological advancements. Assessing the relative impacts of climate change and technology on agricultural productivity is critical for designing optimal policies for sustaining the food system. Here, we quantify the effects of warming and technological advancements on US corn yields using panel data econometric techniques on large-scale micro-level data. We find that, from 2000 to 2020, technology-driven yield growth has significantly surpassed climate-induced yield losses, even with notable warming. Our mid-century projections indicate that sustained yield growth can more than offset the adverse effects of rising temperatures in the medium term, despite future warming causing more significant yield damages than in the past. However, a slowdown in yield growth in certain regions could hinder this compensatory effect. Our findings highlight the importance of maintaining technology-driven yield growth rates over the next decades. Increasing R&D investments to sustain improvements in agricultural productivity is crucial for mitigating climate change impacts on agriculture.


Xiaomeng Cui, 2024

Abstract: Scientific knowledge informs that lightning provides nitrogen fixation that potentially benefits crops, but how this resource windfall affects farm outcomes and behaviors is still poorly understood even though it has meaningful implications on enhancing environmental sustainability. Based on a decades-long panel of US counties with geo-referenced lightning activities, I find lightning fosters agricultural productivity in addition to the effects solely from rainfall. Lightning’s fertilization is more pronounced on crops with nitrogen demand unmet by commercial fertilizers, on less fertile land, and during the crucial crop-growth stage. Guided by a simple model, I show empirically that lightning’s fertilization further affects farm behaviors. A lightning- induced pre-season nitrogen deposit modestly reduces farmers’ overall fertilizer application, and lightning-provided nitrogen during the early season stimulates crop expansion.Through the channels of improving yields, saving fertilizers, and changing acres, the revealed benefit of a one standard-deviation increase in lightning rates amounts to roughly 0.8 billion US dollars annually, while the potential yet unrealized benefits are likely much larger.


Selected Work in Progress