Climate Shocks and Exports

Abstract

This paper uses international trade data to examine the effects of climate shocks on economic activity. At the aggregate level, Melissa Dell, Benjamin F. Jones, and Benjamin A. Olken (2008) (hereafter, DJO) have demonstrated that higher temperatures in a given year reduce the growth rate of GDP per capita, but only in poor countries. The analysis of trade data in this paper builds on that finding, with three principal motivations. First, international trade links the fortunes of countries, providing potentially important conduits for geographically limited climatic impacts to have global economic effects. Second, international trade data is the best available source for identifying economic activity worldwide separately by narrowly defined sectors. Examining international trade data, one can thus say more precisely what sectors are affected by climatic changes. Finally, the trade data, collected by the importing country, provides a check on the potentially low-quality national accounts data provided by the home country.