The Economic Growth Impact of Hurricanes: Evidence from U.S. Coastal Counties
研究飓风对美国沿海县经济增长率的影响,发现每年平均降低0.45个百分点,其中28%源于富裕人口迁离,但州级和国家级增长不受影响。
I estimate the impact of hurricane strikes on local economic growth rates. To this end, I assemble a panel data set of U.S. coastal counties' growth rates and construct a novel 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. The econometric results suggest that a county's annual economic growth rate falls on average by 0.45 percentage points, 28%% of it due to richer individuals moving away from affected counties. I also find that the impact of hurricanes is netted out in annual terms at the state level and does not affect national economic growth rates at all. © 2011 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.