IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0229243.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of climate and geography on worldwide fine resolution economic activity

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Troccoli

Abstract

Geography, including climatic factors, have long been considered potentially important elements in shaping socio-economic activities, alongside other determinants, such as institutions. Here we demonstrate that geography and climate variables satisfactorily explain the worldwide economic activity as measured by the per capita Gross Cell Product (GCP-PC) at a fine geographical resolution, typically much higher than country average. A 1° by 1° GCP-PC dataset has been key for establishing and testing a direct relationship between ‘local’ geography/climate and GCP-PC. Not only have we tested the geography and climate hypothesis using many possible explanatory variables, importantly we have also predicted and reconstructed GCP-PC worldwide by retaining the most significant predictors. While this study confirms that latitude is the most important predictor for GCP-PC when taken in isolation, the accuracy of the GCP-PC prediction is greatly improved when other factors mainly related to variations in climatic variables, rather than average climatic conditions as typically used, are considered. However, latitude diminishes in importance when only the wealthier parts of the globe are considered. This work points to specific features of the climate system which explain economic activity, such as the variability in air pressure. Implications of these findings range from an improved understanding of why socio-economically better-off societies are geographically placed where they are in the present, past and future to informing where new economic activities could be established in order to yield favourable economic outcomes based on geography and climate conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Troccoli, 2020. "Effect of climate and geography on worldwide fine resolution economic activity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-20, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0229243
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229243
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229243&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0229243?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 69-85, Fall.
    2. Marshall Burke & Solomon M. Hsiang & Edward Miguel, 2015. "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production," Nature, Nature, vol. 527(7577), pages 235-239, November.
    3. Zhang, Peng & Deschenes, Olivier & Meng, Kyle & Zhang, Junjie, 2018. "Temperature effects on productivity and factor reallocation: Evidence from a half million chinese manufacturing plants," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-17.
    4. Geoffrey Heal & Jisung Park, 2013. "Feeling the Heat: Temperature, Physiology & the Wealth of Nations," NBER Working Papers 19725, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. David E. Bloom & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1998. "Geography, Demography, and Economic Growth in Africa," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 207-296.
    6. David H. Romer & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1999. "Does Trade Cause Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 379-399, June.
    7. Eckaus, Richard S., 1961. "The North-South Differential In Italian Economic Development," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 285-317, September.
    8. Katrina Jessoe & Dale T. Manning & J. Edward Taylor, 2018. "Climate Change and Labour Allocation in Rural Mexico: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 230-261.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    10. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 1-118.
    11. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    12. Mitton, Todd, 2016. "The wealth of subnations: Geography, institutions, and within-country development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 88-111.
    13. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2012. "Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 66-95, July.
    14. Solomon M. Hsiang & Amir S. Jina, 2014. "The Causal Effect of Environmental Catastrophe on Long-Run Economic Growth: Evidence From 6,700 Cyclones," NBER Working Papers 20352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Maarten Bosker & Harry Garretsen, 2009. "Economic development and the geography of institutions," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 295-328, May.
    16. Maximilian Auffhammer & Solomon M. Hsiang & Wolfram Schlenker & Adam Sobel, 2013. "Using Weather Data and Climate Model Output in Economic Analyses of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 7(2), pages 181-198, July.
    17. Katrina Jessoe & Dale T. Manning & J. Edward Taylor, 2018. "Climate Change and Labour Allocation in Rural Mexico: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 230-261, February.
    18. repec:fth:prinin:455 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Ingrid Dallmann, 2019. "Weather Variations and International Trade," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(1), pages 155-206, January.
    20. Nordhaus William D & Chen Xi, 2009. "Geography: Graphics and Economics," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-14, March.
    21. Joshua Angrist & Alan Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Working Papers 834, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Evangelos Rasvanis & Vassilis Tselios, 2021. "Do agglomeration economies matter where natural endowments are? Lessons from Greece," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 1009-1024, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alberto Troccoli, 2018. "Effect of Climate and Geography on worldwide fine resolution economic activity," Papers 1806.06358, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2019.
    2. Huang, Kaixing & Zhao, Hong & Huang, Jikun & Wang, Jinxia & Findlay, Christopher, 2020. "The impact of climate change on the labor allocation: Empirical evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    3. Marco Letta & Richard S. J. Tol, 2019. "Weather, Climate and Total Factor Productivity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(1), pages 283-305, May.
    4. Letta, Marco & Montalbano, Pierluigi & Tol, Richard S.J., 2018. "Temperature shocks, short-term growth and poverty thresholds: Evidence from rural Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 13-32.
    5. Richard S.J. Tol, 2020. "The Economic Impact of Weather and Climate," Video Library 2094, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Jaqueline Oliveira & Bruno Palialol & Paula Pereda, 2021. "Do temperature shocks affect non-agriculture wages in Brazil? Evidence from individual-level panel data," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2021_13, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    7. Michael Berlemann & Daniela Wenzel, 2018. "Precipitation and Economic Growth," CESifo Working Paper Series 7258, CESifo.
    8. Holtermann, Linus & Rische, Marie-Christin, 2020. "The Subnational Effect of Temperature on Economic Production: A Disaggregated Analysis in European Regions," MPRA Paper 104606, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Jonathan Colmer, 2021. "Temperature, Labor Reallocation, and Industrial Production: Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 101-124, October.
    10. Daniel Osberghaus, 2019. "The Effects of Natural Disasters and Weather Variations on International Trade and Financial Flows: a Review of the Empirical Literature," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 305-325, October.
    11. Mueller, Valerie & Sheriff, Glenn & Dou, Xiaoya & Gray, Clark, 2020. "Temporary migration and climate variation in eastern Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Chengzheng Li & Zheng Pan, 2021. "How do extremely high temperatures affect labor market performance? Evidence from rural China," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 2265-2291, October.
    13. Kalkuhl, Matthias & Wenz, Leonie, 2020. "The impact of climate conditions on economic production. Evidence from a global panel of regions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    14. Etienne ESPAGNE & Nicolas DE LAUBIER-LONGUET MARX & Thanh NGO-DUC, 2019. "Non-linear Impacts of Climate Change on Income and Inequality in Vietnam," Working Paper e47825f2-0059-4010-8291-1, Agence française de développement.
    15. Siriklao Sangkhaphan & Yang Shu, 2019. "The Effect of Rainfall on Economic Growth in Thailand: A Blessing for Poor Provinces," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    16. Ar'anzazu de Juan & Pilar Poncela & Vladimir Rodr'iguez-Caballero & Esther Ruiz, 2022. "Economic activity and climate change," Papers 2206.03187, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2022.
    17. Augustus J. Panton, 2020. "Climate hysteresis and monetary policy," CAMA Working Papers 2020-76, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    18. Surender Kumar & Madhu Khanna, 2019. "Temperature and production efficiency growth: empirical evidence," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 209-229, September.
    19. Li, Chengzheng & Cong, Jiajia & Yin, Lijuan, 2021. "Extreme heat and exports: Evidence from Chinese exporters," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Jimmy Karlsson, 2021. "Temperature and Exports: Evidence from the United States," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 80(2), pages 311-337, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0229243. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.