The existence of thresholds constitutes an important frontier topic for resilience analysis and measurement. This paper contributes to the literature by identifying critical resilience thresholds below which rural Tanzanian households are unable to absorb the negative effects of temperature anomalies on long-run growth. To make up for the lack of long micro panels, we generate a synthetic panel covering the time span 2000–2013. We show that 25%–47% of households in our sample lie below the estimated thresholds. The evidence of resilience-driven regime shifts and non-linear dynamics has important implications for adaptation to climate change in developing countries and is of significant interest for policy interventions.

Highlights

• The paper studies the causal links between resilience to temperature anomalies and food consumption growth.
• The paper adopts a pseudo-panel approach to explore long-run dynamics.
• The paper identifies resilience thresholds marking regime shifts in growth trajectories.
• The paper assesses that a share of households comprised between 25% and 47% in rural Tanzania lie below the thresholds.
• The paper provides key implications for policy targeting.