This paper studies how a climate shock is transmitted through the financial system. Our empirical strategy combines data on climate and banking with El Niño, a natural experiment producing quasi-random variation in US climate. El Niño generates heterogeneous changes in lending across counties,...

Using a representative consumer survey in the U.S., we elicit beliefs about the economic impact of climate change. Respondents perceive a high probability of costly, rare disasters in the near future due to climate change, but not much of an impact on GDP growth. Salience of rare disasters...