IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfr/banfra/935.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Decomposing the Inflation Response to Weather-Related Disasters

Author

Listed:
  • Erwan Gautier
  • Christoph Grosse Steffen
  • Magali Marx
  • Paul Vertier

Abstract

This paper provides empirical evidence on the compositional effect of weather-related disasters on consumer prices. We combine data on monthly granular inflation for 12 CPI product categories with data on extreme weather events for four French overseas territories sporadically hit by large weather-related disasters. We find that disasters lead to a maximum rise in consumer prices of 0.5 percent with substantial heterogeneity in the price response. An immediate strong surge in the prices of food, and notably of fresh products, is partially offset by a decline in the prices of manufactured products and services. The effects of weather-related disasters dissipate after four months and differ along the income distribution, notably raising inflation for low-income households by more. Price controls dampen the price response on impact, but lead to similar adjustments in the price level after six months.

Suggested Citation

  • Erwan Gautier & Christoph Grosse Steffen & Magali Marx & Paul Vertier, 2023. "Decomposing the Inflation Response to Weather-Related Disasters," Working papers 935, Banque de France.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:935
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.banque-france.fr/system/files/2023-12/WP935_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kirchberger, Martina, 2017. "Natural disasters and labor markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 40-58.
    2. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Gröschl, Jasmin, 2014. "Naturally negative: The growth effects of natural disasters," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 92-106.
    3. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    4. Cassar, Alessandra & Healy, Andrew & von Kessler, Carl, 2017. "Trust, Risk, and Time Preferences After a Natural Disaster: Experimental Evidence from Thailand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 90-105.
    5. Etienne Gagnon & David López-Salido, 2020. "Small Price Responses to Large Demand Shocks," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 792-828.
    6. Alberto Cavallo & Eduardo Cavallo & Roberto Rigobon, 2014. "Prices and Supply Disruptions during Natural Disasters," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 449-471, November.
    7. Li, Zheng-Zheng & Meng, Qin & Zhang, Linling & Lobont, Oana-Ramona & Shen, Yijuan, 2023. "How do rare earth prices respond to economic and geopolitical factors?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    8. Ciccarelli, Matteo & Kuik, Friderike & Martínez Hernández, Catalina, 2023. "The asymmetric effects of weather shocks on euro area inflation," Working Paper Series 2798, European Central Bank.
    9. Alain N. Kabundi & Mr. Montfort Mlachila & Jiaxiong Yao, 2022. "How Persistent are Climate-Related Price Shocks? Implications for Monetary Policy," IMF Working Papers 2022/207, International Monetary Fund.
    10. J. Vernon Henderson & Adam Storeygard & David N. Weil, 2012. "Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 994-1028, April.
    11. Bart Hobijn & David Lagakos, 2005. "Inflation Inequality In The United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(4), pages 581-606, December.
    12. Kotz, Maximilian & Kuik, Friderike & Lis, Eliza & Nickel, Christiane, 2023. "The impact of global warming on inflation: averages, seasonality and extremes," Working Paper Series 2821, European Central Bank.
    13. Timothy K. M. Beatty & Gabriel E. Lade & Jay Shimshack, 2021. "Hurricanes and Gasoline Price Gouging," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 347-374.
    14. Xiaojia Bao & Puyang Sun & Jianan Li, 2023. "The impacts of tropical storms on food prices: Evidence from China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 576-596, March.
    15. Luís Cabral & Lei Xu, 2021. "Seller reputation and price gouging: Evidence from the COVID‐19 pandemic," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 867-879, July.
    16. Dreda Culpepper & Walter Block, 2008. "Price gouging in the Katrina aftermath: free markets at work," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(7), pages 512-520, June.
    17. 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.
    18. Matthew E. Kahn, 2005. "The Death Toll from Natural Disasters: The Role of Income, Geography, and Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 271-284, May.
    19. Christopher J. Neely, 2022. "Why Price Controls Should Stay in the History Books," The Regional Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, March.
    20. Lisa Doyle & Ilan Noy, 2015. "The short-run nationwide macroeconomic effects of the Canterbury earthquakes," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 134-156, August.
    21. Schumacher, Ingmar & Strobl, Eric, 2011. "Economic development and losses due to natural disasters: The role of hazard exposure," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 97-105.
    22. Maximilian Auffhammer, 2018. "Quantifying Economic Damages from Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 33-52, Fall.
    23. José Luis Montiel Olea & Mikkel Plagborg‐Møller, 2021. "Local Projection Inference Is Simpler and More Robust Than You Think," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(4), pages 1789-1823, July.
    24. Faccia, Donata & Parker, Miles & Stracca, Livio, 2021. "Feeling the heat: extreme temperatures and price stability," Working Paper Series 2626, European Central Bank.
    25. Neilson, Henry, 2009. "Price gouging versus price reduction in retail gasoline markets during Hurricane Rita," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 11-13, October.
    26. Charles D. Kolstad & Frances C. Moore, 2020. "Estimating the Economic Impacts of Climate Change Using Weather Observations," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 1-24.
    27. repec:bla:revinw:v:60:y:2014:i::p:s449-s471 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Xiaojia Bao & Puyang Sun & Jianan Li, 2023. "The impacts of tropical storms on food prices: Evidence from China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 576-596, March.
    2. Hallegatte,Stephane & Jooste,Charl & Mcisaac,Florent John, 2022. "Macroeconomic Consequences of Natural Disasters : A Modeling Proposal and Application to Floodsand Earthquakes in Turkey," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9943, The World Bank.
    3. Olivier R de Bandt & Luc Jacolin & Thibault Lemaire, 2021. "Climate Change in Developing Countries: Global Warming Effects, Transmission Channels and Adaptation Policies," Working Papers hal-03948704, HAL.
    4. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Gröschl, Jasmin & Sanders, Mark & Schippers, Vincent & Steinwachs, Thomas, 2022. "The economic impact of weather anomalies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Jaap W.B. Bos & Jasmin Gröschl & Martien Lamers & Runliang Li & Mark Sanders & Vincent Schippers & Jasmin Katrin Gröschl, 2022. "How Do Institutions Affect the Impact of Natural Disasters?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10174, CESifo.
    6. Jeroen Klomp & John Sseruyange, 2021. "Earthquakes and Economic Outcomes: Does Central Bank Independence Matter?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 335-359, April.
    7. Alain N. Kabundi & Mr. Montfort Mlachila & Jiaxiong Yao, 2022. "How Persistent are Climate-Related Price Shocks? Implications for Monetary Policy," IMF Working Papers 2022/207, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Tobias Kranz & Hamza Bennani & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2024. "Monetary Policy and Climate Change: Challenges and the Role of Major Central Banks," Research Papers in Economics 2024-01, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    9. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "The Economic Impact of Climate in the Long Run," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anil Markandya & Dirk Rübbelke (ed.), CLIMATE AND DEVELOPMENT, chapter 1, pages 3-36, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Emmanuel Apergis & Nicholas Apergis, 2021. "The impact of COVID-19 on economic growth: evidence from a Bayesian Panel Vector Autoregressive (BPVAR) model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(58), pages 6739-6751, December.
    11. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Gröschl, Jasmin & Sanders, Mark & Schippers, Vincent & Steinwachs, Thomas, 2018. "Shedding Light on the Spatial Diffusion of Disasters," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181556, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Miles Parker, 2018. "The Impact of Disasters on Inflation," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 21-48, April.
    13. Philippe Kabore & Nicholas Rivers, 2023. "Manufacturing output and extreme temperature: Evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(1), pages 191-224, February.
    14. Yongyang Cai & William Brock & Anastasios Xepapadeas, 2023. "Climate Change Impact on Economic Growth: Regional Climate Policy under Cooperation and Noncooperation," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(3), pages 569-605.
    15. Johar, Meliyanni & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A. & Siminski, Peter & Stavrunova, Olena, 2022. "The economic impacts of direct natural disaster exposure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 26-39.
    16. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Gröschl, Jasmin, 2014. "Naturally negative: The growth effects of natural disasters," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 92-106.
    17. Cunpu Li & Xuetong Zhang & Jing He, 2023. "Impact of Climate Change on Inflation in 26 Selected Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-22, August.
    18. Linsenmeier, Manuel, 2021. "Temperature variability and long-run economic development," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110499, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Naqvi, Asjad, 2017. "Deep Impact: Geo-Simulations as a Policy Toolkit for Natural Disasters," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 395-418.
    20. Robert Reinhardt, 2022. "Shaking up Foreign Finance: FDI in a Post-Disaster World," Working Papers halshs-03908250, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Natural Disasters; Extreme Weather; Inflation; Disaggregate Inflation; Inequality; Price Gouging;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bfr:banfra:935. 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: Michael brassart (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdfgvfr.html .

    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.