Abstract We investigate the economic distributional effects of soil loss in Malawi, where erosion deprives rural households of the natural capital necessary to boost agricultural production and lifts food security. We employ a two-year dataset combining unique topsoil loss data with socio-economic, agro-ecological and climatic information both at household and plot level. We consider heterogenous impacts of soil loss in productivity, total consumption and caloric intake by estimating an unconditional quantile regression model. The role of different agricultural practices in mitigating the negative impacts of soil loss is also considered to assess cost-effective policy options and compensation mechanisms and to provide aggregated effects. We show that large heterogeneous impacts currently exist across the most exposed population groups and such impacts could translate in a production loss equivalent to 1 to 3% of Malawi’s GDP under different increasing soil erosion scenarios.

中文翻译：

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马拉维土壤侵蚀对农业生产力和福利的分布影响

摘要 我们调查了马拉维土壤流失对经济分配的影响，那里的侵蚀剥夺了农村家庭促进农业生产和提升粮食安全所需的自然资本。我们采用了一个为期两年的数据集，将独特的表土流失数据与家庭和地块层面的社会经济、农业生态和气候信息相结合。我们通过估计无条件分位数回归模型来考虑土壤流失对生产力、总消耗和热量摄入的异质影响。还考虑了不同农业实践在减轻土壤流失负面影响方面的作用，以评估具有成本效益的政策选择和补偿机制，并提供综合效果。