IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sus/susewp/0423.html

The effects of weather conditions on economic growth: Evidence from global subnational economic output and income

Author

Listed:
  • Jinchi Dong

    (School of the Environment, Nanjing University)

  • Jinnan Wang

    (School of the Environment, Nanjing University)

  • Richard S.J. Tol

    (Department of Economics, University of Sussex, BN1 9SL Falmer, United Kingdom)

  • Bi Jun

    (School of the Environment, Nanjing University)

Abstract

The effects of weather on economic growth continue to be debated. Previous studies economic output, but income better reflects living standards; income and output are the same at the national level, but differ at a finer spatial scale. This study assembles a unique database comprising global subnational GDP and GDI per capita data from over 1600 regions across more than 180 countries and analyzes the effects of weather conditions on economic growth. There is a significant negative effect of annual mean temperature on income, while weather conditions do not significantly affect output per capita growth. We also find significant interaction effects between weather and weather variability, as well as different adaptations between rich and poor regions. The omission of data from a large number of poor and hot countries in previous subnational research has led to an underestimation of the economic impact of weather shocks. Focusing on output rather than income, previous studies also appear to have underestimated the impact of climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Jinchi Dong & Jinnan Wang & Richard S.J. Tol & Bi Jun, 2023. "The effects of weather conditions on economic growth: Evidence from global subnational economic output and income," Working Paper Series 0423, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:sus:susewp:0423
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=wps-04-2023.pdf&site=18
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. W. Botzen & J. Bergh & L. Bouwer, 2010. "Climate change and increased risk for the insurance sector: a global perspective and an assessment for the Netherlands," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 52(3), pages 577-598, March.
    2. Richard S.J. Tol, 2011. "The Social Cost of Carbon," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 419-443, October.
    3. Anthoff, David & Tol, Richard S.J., 2010. "On international equity weights and national decision making on climate change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 14-20, July.
    4. Maximilian Auffhammer, 2018. "Quantifying Economic Damages from Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 33-52, Fall.
    5. Matthew Adler & David Anthoff & Valentina Bosetti & Greg Garner & Klaus Keller & Nicolas Treich, 2017. "Priority for the worse-off and the social cost of carbon," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(6), pages 443-449, June.
    6. Brenden Jongman & Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler & Luc Feyen & Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts & Reinhard Mechler & W. J. Wouter Botzen & Laurens M. Bouwer & Georg Pflug & Rodrigo Rojas & Philip J. Ward, 2014. "Increasing stress on disaster-risk finance due to large floods," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(4), pages 264-268, April.
    7. Katharine Ricke & Laurent Drouet & Ken Caldeira & Massimo Tavoni, 2019. "Author Correction: Country-level social cost of carbon," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 9(7), pages 567-567, July.
    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. Tol, Richard S.J., 2024. "A meta-analysis of the total economic impact of climate change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    2. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2024. "Attention to climate change and eco-friendly financial-asset prices: A quantile ARDL approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).

    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. Kornek, Ulrike & Klenert, David & Edenhofer, Ottmar & Fleurbaey, Marc, 2021. "The social cost of carbon and inequality: When local redistribution shapes global carbon prices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. Moritz A. Drupp & Ulrike Kornek & Jasper N. Meya & Lutz Sager, 2021. "Inequality and the Environment: The Economics of a Two-Headed Hydra," CESifo Working Paper Series 9447, CESifo.
    4. Jinchi Dong & Richard S. J. Tol & Jinnan Wang, 2025. "The Effects of Climate and Weather on Economic Output: Evidence from Global Subnational Data," Papers 2505.17946, arXiv.org.
    5. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased over time," Papers 2105.03656, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    6. In Chang Hwang & Richard S. J. Tol, 2025. "National social cost of carbon: An application of FUND," Papers 2509.03926, arXiv.org.
    7. Richard S.J. Tol, 2018. "The impact of climate change and the social cost of carbon," Working Paper Series 1318, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    8. David Anthoff & Richard S. J. Tol, 2022. "Testing the Dismal Theorem," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(5), pages 885-920.
    9. Tol, Richard S.J., 2012. "A cost–benefit analysis of the EU 20/20/2020 package," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 288-295.
    10. Tarsia, Romano, 2024. "Heterogeneous effects of weather shocks on firm economic performance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124251, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Zhang, Hong & Jin, Gui & Zhang, Zhengyu, 2021. "Coupling system of carbon emission and social economy: A review," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    12. Jacobs, Bas & van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2019. "Redistribution and pollution taxes with non-linear Engel curves," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 198-226.
    13. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Janda, Karel & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Selective reporting and the social cost of carbon," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 394-406.
    14. Tol, Richard S.J., 2019. "A social cost of carbon for (almost) every country," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 555-566.
    15. Mier, Mathias & Weissbart, Christoph, 2020. "Power markets in transition: Decarbonization, energy efficiency, and short-term demand response," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    16. Rising, James A. & Taylor, Charlotte & Ives, Matthew C. & Ward, Robert E.t., 2022. "Challenges and innovations in the economic evaluation of the risks of climate change," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114941, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. W. Botzen & Jeroen Bergh, 2014. "Specifications of Social Welfare in Economic Studies of Climate Policy: Overview of Criteria and Related Policy Insights," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(1), pages 1-33, May.
    18. Rising, James A. & Taylor, Charlotte & Ives, Matthew C. & Ward, Robert E.T., 2022. "Challenges and innovations in the economic evaluation of the risks of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    19. Sihvonen, Matti & Pihlainen, Sampo & Lai, Tin-Yu & Salo, Tapio & Hyytiäinen, Kari, 2021. "Crop production, water pollution, or climate change mitigation—Which drives socially optimal fertilization management most?," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    20. Bas Jacobs & Rick van der Ploeg, 2017. "Should Pollution Taxes be Targeted at Income Redistribution?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6599, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth
    • 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:sus:susewp:0423. 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: University of Sussex Business School Communications Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecsusuk.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.