Geography, Depreciation, and Growth
研究了地理位置如何通过影响资本折旧率来影响经济增长，利用热带气旋造成的资产破坏数据，发现折旧率随地点变化，并可能解释全球经济发展差异。
It has been proposed that geography influences economic growth for many reasons. Previous analyses of comparative development seem to have sidestepped the question of location-dependent depreciation. However the construction of new measures of tropical cyclone exposure enables us to consider the potential impact of this single source of capital depreciation. Using an estimate of asset destruction due to tropical cyclones, we identify the “sandcastle depreciation” rate, and find support for location-dependent depreciation by looking at average growth rates. This leads us to propose that heterogeneous and geographically-dependent depreciation rates may play an important role in global patterns of economic development.