A growing empirical literature associates climate anomalies with increased risk of violent conflict. This association has been portrayed as a bellwether of future societal instability as the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are predicted to increase. This paper investigates the theoretical foundation of this claim. A seminal microeconomic model of opportunity costs-a mechanism often thought to drive climate-conflict relationships-is extended by considering realistic changes in the distribution of climate-dependent agricultural income. Results advise caution in using empirical associations between short-run climate anomalies and conflicts to predict the effect of sustained shifts in climate regimes: Although war occurs in bad years, conflict may decrease if agents expect more frequent bad years. Theory suggests a nonmonotonic relation between climate variability and conflict that emerges as agents adapt and adjust their behavior to the new income distribution. We identify 3 measurable statistics of the income distribution that are each unambiguously associated with conflict likelihood. Jointly, these statistics offer a unique signature to distinguish opportunity costs from competing mechanisms that may relate climate anomalies to conflict.

中文翻译：

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气候变化和冲突的机会成本。

越来越多的经验文献将气候异常与暴力冲突的风险增加联系在一起。由于预计极端天气事件的频率和强度会增加，因此将这种关联描绘为未来社会不稳定的领头羊。本文研究了这一主张的理论基础。通过考虑气候相关农业收入分配的现实变化，扩展了机会成本的开创性微观经济学模型（一种通常被认为是驱动气候冲突关系的机制）。结果建议谨慎使用短期气候异常与冲突之间的经验关联来预测气候体制持续变化的影响：尽管战争发生在糟糕的年份，但如果代理商期望更频繁的糟糕的年份，冲突可能会减少。理论表明，气候变化与冲突之间存在一种非单调的关系，这种关系随着代理人适应并调整其行为以适应新的收入分配而出现。我们确定了收入分配的3个可测量统计数据，每个统计数据都与冲突可能性明确相关。这些统计数据共同提供了独特的特征，以将机会成本与可能将气候异常与冲突相关的竞争机制区分开来。