IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

The Economic Growth Impact of Hurricanes: Evidence from US Coastal Counties

Author Info

  • Strobl, Eric

    ()

    (Aix-Marseille University)

Abstract

We estimate the impact of hurricane strikes on local economic growth rates and how this is reflected in more aggregate growth patterns. To this end we assemble a panel data set of US coastal counties’ growth rates and construct a hurricane destruction index that is based on a monetary loss equation, local wind speed estimates derived from a physical wind field model, and local exposure characteristics. Our econometric results suggest that in response to a hurricane strike a county’s annual economic growth rate will initially fall by 0.8, but then partially recover by 0.2 percentage points. While the pattern is qualitatively similar at the state level, the net effect over the long term is negligible. Hurricane strikes do not appear to be economically important enough to be reflected in national economic growth rates.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://ftp.iza.org/dp3619.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3619.

as
in new window

Length: 41 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3619
Contact details of provider: Postal:
IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Phone: +49 228 3894 223
Fax: +49 228 3894 180
Web page: http://www.iza.org

Order Information: Postal: IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Email:


Keywords: US coastal counties; economic growth; hurricanes;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Matthew J. Higgins & Daniel Levy & Andrew T. Young, 2005. "Growth and Convergence across the U.S.: Evidence from County-level Data," Emory Economics 0529, Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta).
  2. Giovanni S.F. Bruno, 2004. "Approximating the Bias of the LSDV Estimator for Dynamic Unbalanced Panel Data Models," KITeS Working Papers 159, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Jul 2004.
  3. Noy, Ilan, 2009. "The macroeconomic consequences of disasters," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 221-231, March.
  4. Ariel R. Belasen & Solomon W. Polachek, 2009. "How Disasters Affect Local Labor Markets: The Effects of Hurricanes in Florida," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(1).
  5. Eric Strobl & Frank Walsh, 2009. "The Re-Building Effect of Hurricanes: Evidence from Employment in the US Construction Industry," Working Papers hal-00393886, HAL.
  6. Richard Evans & Yingyao Hu & Zhong Zhao, 2010. "The fertility effect of catastrophe: U.S. hurricane births," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(1), pages 1-36, January.
  7. Horwich, George, 2000. "Economic Lessons of the Kobe Earthquake," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(3), pages 521-42, April.
  8. Kiviet, Jan F., 1995. "On bias, inconsistency, and efficiency of various estimators in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 53-78, July.
  9. Belasen, Ariel R. & Polachek, Solomon, 2008. "How Hurricanes Affect Employment and Wages in Local Labor Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 3407, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  10. Conley, T. G., 1999. "GMM estimation with cross sectional dependence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 1-45, September.
  11. Judson, Ruth A. & Owen, Ann L., 1999. "Estimating dynamic panel data models: a guide for macroeconomists," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 9-15, October.
  12. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-26, November.
  13. Toya, Hideki & Skidmore, Mark, 2007. "Economic development and the impacts of natural disasters," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 20-25, January.
  14. John C. Bluedorn, 2005. "Hurricanes: Intertemporal Trade and Capital Shocks," Economics Series Working Papers 241, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
  15. Anderson, T. W. & Hsiao, Cheng, 1982. "Formulation and estimation of dynamic models using panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 47-82, January.
  16. 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.
  17. Rappaport, Jordan & Sachs, Jeffrey D, 2003. "The United States as a Coastal Nation," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 5-46, March.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3619. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Mark Fallak)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.