Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Hurricanes: Intertemporal Trade and Capital Shocks

Contents:

Author Info

  • John C. Bluedorn

    () (Dept of Economcis, University of Oxford)

Abstract

Hurricanes in the Caribbean and Central-America represent a natural experiment to test the intertemporal approach to current account determination. The intertemporal approach allows for the possibility of intertemporal trade, via international borrowing. Previous tests of intertemporal current account (ICA) models have typically relied upon the identification of shocks in a VAR framework with which to trace the current account response. Hurricane shocks represent exactly the kind of temporary, country-specific shock required by the theory, allowing for the intertemporal current account response to be estimated without recourse to a VAR shock decomposition. Using data on the economic damages attributable to a hurricane, I estimate the economy's response to a hurricane-induced capital shock within a fixed effects panel model. The current account response qualitatively conforms to the S-shaped response predicted by the theory, indicating that countries are engaging in intertemporal trade. However, the exact timing and magnitude of the response differs from a standard ICA model's smooth behavior. A hurricane which destroys capital valued at one year's GDP pushes the current account over GDP into deficit by 5 percentage points initially. 3-8 years after such a hurricane, the current account over GDP moves into surplus at 2.7 percentage points.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/economics/papers/2005/W22/bluedorn2005hurricanes.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford in its series Economics Papers with number 2005-W22.

as in new window
Length: 81 pages
Date of creation: 01 May 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nuf:econwp:0522

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/economics/

Related research

Keywords: hurricanes; natural experiment; current account dynamics;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Aart Kraay & Jaume Ventura, 2000. "Current Accounts In Debtor And Creditor Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(4), pages 1137-1166, November.
  2. Reuven Glick & Kenneth Rogoff, 1993. "Global Versus Country-Specific Productivity Shocks and the Current Acocount," Boston University - Institute for Economic Development 31, Boston University, Institute for Economic Development.
  3. John Y. Campbell, 1988. "Does Saving Anticipate Declining Labor Income? An Alternative Test of the Permanent Income Hypothesis," NBER Working Papers 1805, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Sheffrin, Steven M. & Woo, Wing Thye, 1990. "Present value tests of an intertemporal model of the current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3-4), pages 237-253, November.
  5. Lane, Philip R., 1999. "The New Open Economy Macroeconomics: a Survey," CEPR Discussion Papers 2115, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  6. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza, 2009. "The Feldstein-Horioka fact," NBER Working Papers 15519, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza, 2010. "The Feldstein-Horioka Fact," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2009, pages 103-117 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Martin Feldstein & Charles Horioka, 1979. "Domestic Savings and International Capital Flows," NBER Working Papers 0310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Rey, Hélène, 2005. "International Financial Adjustment," CEPR Discussion Papers 4923, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  9. Ghosh, Atish R & Ostry, Jonathan D, 1995. "The Current Account in Developing Countries: A Perspective from the Consumption-Smoothing Approach," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 9(2), pages 305-33, May.
  10. Pagano, Marcello & Hartley, Michael J., 1981. "On fitting distributed lag models subject to polynomial restrictions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 171-198, June.
  11. Nason, James M. & Rogers, John H., 2006. "The present-value model of the current account has been rejected: Round up the usual suspects," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 159-187, January.
  12. Christopher D. Carroll, 2009. "Theoretical Foundations of Buffer Stock Saving," 2009 Meeting Papers 210, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  13. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 1996. "The Intertemporal Approach to the Current Account," NBER Working Papers 4893, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. Mark Skidmore & Hideki Toya, 2002. "Do Natural Disasters Promote Long-Run Growth?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 664-687, October.
  15. Hoffman, Mathias, 2001. "The Relative Dynamics of Investment and the Current Account in the G7-Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(471), pages C148-63, May.
  16. Kenneth Kasa, 2000. "Testing present value models of the current account: a cautionary note," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 2000-12, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
  17. Mathias Hoffmann, 2003. "International macroeconomic fluctuations and the current account," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 36(2), pages 401-420, May.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Dean Yang, 2006. "Coping with Disaster: The Impact of Hurricanes on International Financial Flows, 1970-2002," NBER Working Papers 12794, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Strobl, Eric, 2008. "The Economic Growth Impact of Hurricanes: Evidence from US Coastal Counties," IZA Discussion Papers 3619, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Lopez, Ramon, 2009. "Natural disasters and the dynamics of intangible assets," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4874, The World Bank.
  4. Eduardo Cavallo & Ilan Noy, 2009. "The Economics of Natural Disasters - A Survey," Working Papers 200919, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
  5. Elif C. Arbatli, 2008. "Futures Markets, Oil Prices and the Intertemporal Approach to the Current Account," Working Papers 08-48, Bank of Canada.
  6. Jiandong Ju & Shang-Jin Wei, 2007. "Current Account Adjustment: Some New Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 13388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Elif C. Arbatli, 2009. "Futures Markets, Oil Prices, and the Intertemporal Approach to the Current Account," 2009 Meeting Papers 406, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  8. Eric Strobl, 2009. "The impact of hurricane strikes on local cropland productivity: Evidence from the Carribean," Working Papers hal-00393883, HAL.
  9. Eduardo Cavallo & Ilan Noy, 2010. "The Aftermath of Natural Disasters: Beyond Destruction," CESifo Forum, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 11(2), pages 25-35, 07.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nuf:econwp:0522

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Maxine Collett).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.