Understanding the Macroeconomic Effects of Natural Disasters

Climate change is causing more frequent and devastating natural disasters. The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, it examines the dynamic effects of natural disasters on the growth of output and its components. Government expenditure in advanced economies (AEs) rises immediately in the same year of the natural disaster, offsetting the decline in private investment growth and thereby mitigating the negative effect on output growth. As a result, output growth in AEs is not significantly affected by natural disasters. In contrast, the increase in government expenditure in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDEs) after a natural disaster is smaller and thus, unable to mitigate the contemporaneous negative effect on output growth (which mainly reflects the fall in investment in non-small-island EMDEs and in net exports in small-island EMDEs). In addition, the output recovery in the subsequent year does not fully offset the decline during the year of the disaster. Second, this paper assesses the role of pre-existing country characteristics in mitigating the adverse impact of natural disasters. The paper finds that small islands and countries with limited pre-disaster fiscal space tend to experience more significant declines in output growth following a natural disaster.