Institutions, Extreme Weather, and Urbanization in the Greater Mekong Region

Climate change threatens many developing countries with more frequent and intense extreme weather events. Researchers, however, have not comprehensively examined how extreme weather influences urbanization and sustainable development. Based on the spatial estimates of precipitation, tropical cyclones, and temperature for the period of 2000 to 2010, we establish an eleven-year climatological record and calculate anomalies at the county and district level in the Greater Mekong Region (GMR). Combining this with urbanization data from the World Bank, we relate weather patterns to growth rates in urban population and urban land use and find that the above-average rainfall in the wet season along with more frequent cold waves and tropical cyclones tend to retard urban development. In contrast, crop failures caused by increasingly severe droughts during the dry season and heat waves accelerate rural–urban migration and the agglomeration of urban poverty. By identifying institutionally varying effects, we further find that nonsocialist countries have additional sensitivity to most weather extremes than more centralized socialist countries, which have stronger ability to mobilize resources for disaster management and relief. Our study contributes to the understanding of effects of weather shocks on socioeconomic outcomes in societies rapidly integrating with the global economy.