Mathilde Degois (PSAE)
Does adapting to climate change end up changing the climate—and with it, long-run agricultural development? This paper studies how large-scale irrigation infrastructures modify weather patterns and agricultural transformation in India. Using five decades of administrative, climatic, and agricultural data, I exploit exogenous exposure to irrigation induced by prevailing winds. Irrigation raises rainfall downwind by 9 percent. These wetter conditions boost agricultural output, but entirely through land expansion rather than productivity gains. Farmers respond by investing in private irrigation, indicating that rainfall and irrigation might be complements, not substitutes, while showing no evidence of technological upgrading or crop switching. The result is a “comfort trap”: a more favorable climate that sustains smallholders and enables large farm consolidation, yet slows modernization. By showing that adaptation itself alters the climate, and that these climatic shifts, in turn, reshape adaptive behavior, this paper reveals a feedback loop between human adaptation and the environment, challenging conventional approaches to causally assessing the role of adaptation in a changing climate.