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Shaken Balances: Climate Risks and the Dynamics of Fiscal and External Sustainability

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Listed:
  • António Afonso
  • José Alves
  • Tovar João Jalles
  • Sofia Monteiro
  • João Tovar Jalles

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of natural disasters on fiscal and external sustainability across 134 economies from 1980 to 2023. We adopt a two-step approach: first, we estimate country-specific, time-varying sustainability coefficients; second, we assess their determinants using Weighted Least Squares panel regressions with fixed effects. To complement the long-run analysis, we employ local projections to capture the short-term dynamics following disaster-related mortality, vulnerability, and resilience shocks. Results show that natural disasters weaken fiscal sustainability, particularly in emerging and vulnerable economies. Vulnerability exacerbates fiscal and external fragility, while resilience mitigates adverse effects on public accounts. Local projections reveal that fiscal sustainability deteriorates significantly in the medium term after disaster shocks, whereas external sustainability responses are more muted and heterogeneous. Together, these findings highlight the importance of combining long- and short-run approaches to understand how climate shocks propagate through macroeconomic channels and to inform adaptive, risk-sensitive fiscal policy frameworks.

Suggested Citation

  • António Afonso & José Alves & Tovar João Jalles & Sofia Monteiro & João Tovar Jalles, 2025. "Shaken Balances: Climate Risks and the Dynamics of Fiscal and External Sustainability," CESifo Working Paper Series 11818, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11818
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    fiscal sustainability; external sustainability; climate risk; natural disasters; local projections; weighted least squares.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • O23 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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