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Natural disasters and countries' exports: New insights from a new (and an old) database

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  • Hajare El Hadri
  • Daniel Mirza
  • Isabelle Rabaud

Abstract

This paper is the first to uncover in details the impact of different families of disasters on exports from 1979 to 2000 (storms, floods, earthquakes and changes in temperatures). Besides, our paper is the first to compare in a quasi‐systematic way the results across the two data sets at hand, the standard EM‐DAT data and GeoMet data, a newly available data set based on geophysical and meteorological data (European Economic Review, 2013, 58, 18; Journal of Development Economics, 2014, 111, 92). We run series of regressions while accounting progressively for the characteristics of products (all traded goods v/s agriculture ones), the characteristics of the country (size, level of development) and the intensity of the catastrophes. When pooling all countries, and all types of disasters, we do not find any statistical impact on exports. But when focusing on each of them separately and on agricultural goods, the occurrence of an earthquake appears to reduce exports of about 3%, regardless of its location. A windstorm shock, even when it happens to be very severe, has hardly any impact. A flood, on its side, is estimated to reduce export flows of a small country by nearly 3%. The effect of changes in temperatures is ambiguous. All in all, except for temperature‐related disasters, the results are consistent across both data sets, EM‐DAT and GeoMet, although they appear to be slightly more in line with our expectations in the case of GeoMet.

Suggested Citation

  • Hajare El Hadri & Daniel Mirza & Isabelle Rabaud, 2019. "Natural disasters and countries' exports: New insights from a new (and an old) database," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(9), pages 2668-2683, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:worlde:v:42:y:2019:i:9:p:2668-2683
    DOI: 10.1111/twec.12833
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    Cited by:

    1. Kaori Tembata & Kenji Takeuchi, 2019. "Floods and Exports: An Empirical Study on Natural Disaster Shocks in Southeast Asia," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 39-60, April.
    2. Galina Hale, 2024. "Climate Disasters and Exchange Rates: Are Beliefs Keeping up with Climate Change?," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 72(1), pages 253-291, March.
    3. Beirne, John & Dafermos, Yannis & Kriwoluzky, Alexander & Renzhi, Nuobu & Volz, Ulrich & Wittich, Jana, 2022. "Natural Disasters and Inflation in the Euro Area," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264132, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Madhushika Perera & Shyama Ratnasiri, 2025. "Natural disasters, government effectiveness and agribusiness export competitiveness: Evidence from Developing Asia," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 121(8), pages 9311-9337, May.
    5. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2022. "Effect of structural economic vulnerability on the participation in international trade," EconStor Preprints 262004, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Damette, Olivier & Mathonnat, Clément & Thavard, Julien, 2024. "Climate and sovereign risk: The Latin American experience with strong ENSO events," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    7. Elisa Navarra, 2022. "Stock Market Response to Firms’ Misconduct," Working Papers ECARES 2022-40, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Bahar Aydın Can & Serpil Gerdan & Ramazan Aslan, 2024. "The Effects of 6 February 2023 Earthquakes on the Production and Marketing Process of Firms in the Agriculture and Food Sector: The Case of Malatya Province, Türkiye," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-18, October.
    9. Beirne, John & Dafermos, Yannis & Kriwoluzky, Alexander & Renzhi, Nuobu & Volz, Ulrich & Wittich, Jana, 2024. "Weather-related disasters and inflation in the euro area," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    10. Xiangwen Kong, 2025. "GMO approvals under pressure: How climate shocks shape policy across nations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(10), pages 1-20, October.
    11. Lochan Kumar Batala & Wangxing Yu & Anwar Khan & Kalpana Regmi & Xiaoli Wang, 2021. "Natural disasters' influence on industrial growth, foreign direct investment, and export performance in the South Asian region of Belt and road initiative," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 108(2), pages 1853-1876, September.
    12. Léopold T Biardeau & Mondher Sahli, 2024. "Investigating the non-linear impacts of seven types of natural disasters on inbound tourism: Insights from the EM-DAT database," Tourism Economics, , vol. 30(4), pages 900-923, June.
    13. John Beirne & Yannis Dafermos & Alexander Kriwoluzky & Nuobu Renzhi & Ulrich Volz & Jana Wittich, 2021. "The Effects of Natural Disasters on Price Stability in the Euro Area," Working Papers 244, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    14. Wim Naudé & Martin Cameron, 2021. "Export-Led Growth after COVID-19: The Case of Portugal," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 52, pages 7-53, July.

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