Using two decades of data from twelve low-income countries in West Africa, we show that dust carried by harmattan trade winds increases infant and child mortality. Health investments respond to dust exposure, consistent with compensating behaviors. Despite these efforts, surviving children still...

Does the environment have a causal effect on economic development? Using meteorological data, we reconstruct every country's exposure to the universe of tropical cyclones during 1950-2008. We exploit random within-country year-to-year variation in cyclone strikes to identify the causal effect of...

Most recent cross-country analyses of economic growth have neglected the importance of physical geography. This paper reviews the distinctive development challenges faced by economies situated in tropical climates. Using geographic information system (GIS) mapping, the paper presents evidence...

Economic variables are known to move asymmetrically over the business cycle: quickly and sharply during crises, but slowly and gradually during recoveries. Not known is the fact that this asymmetry is stronger in countries with less-developed financial systems. This new fact is documented using...

Existing theories of pre-emptive war typically predict that the leading country may choose to launch a war on a follower who is catching up, since the follower cannot credibly commit to not use their increased power in the future. But it was Japan who launched a war against the West in 1941, not...

This paper studies how politicians and voters respond to new information on the threats of climate change. Using data on the universe of federal disaster declarations between 1989 and 2014, we document that congress members from districts hit by a hurricane are more likely to support bills...

This study uses hedonic property models to explore how coastal real estate markets subject to heterogeneous information treatments respond to flood risk. We identify reactions to flood risk, distinctly from price effects due to flood damage, by examining non-local flooding events. Utilizing a...

Empirical analyses of climatic event impacts on growth, while critical for policy, have been slow to be incorporated into macroeconomic climate-economy models. This paper proposes a joint empirical-structural approach to bridge this gap for tropical cyclones. First, we review competing empirical...

We examine the economic impact of the large migration of Puerto Ricans to Orlando after Hurricane Maria. Using a synthetic control approach, we find that employment in Orlando increased, especially in construction and retail, and find positive aggregate labor market effects for non-Hispanic and...

This paper examines the impacts of hurricanes on the housing market and the associated implications for local population turnover. We first characterize the post-hurricane equilibrium dynamics in local housing markets using microdata from Florida during 2000-2016. Our results show that...