The Price Impact of Extreme Weather in Developing Countries
通过构建飓风和洪水的月度破坏指数，结合15个加勒比岛屿的消费者价格数据，研究极端天气对发展中国家消费品价格的影响，并估算价格效应带来的福利损失。
We examine the impact of extreme weather on consumer prices in developing countries by constructing a monthly data set of potential hurricane and flood destruction indices and linking these with consumer price data for 15 Caribbean islands. Our econometric model shows that the price impact of extreme weather events can be large. To illustrate potential welfare losses due to these price effects, we combine our estimates with price elasticities obtained from a demand system and with event probabilities for Jamaica. Our results show that while expected monthly losses are small, rare events can cause large falls in monthly welfare due to price increases.