Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014)

Much micro-econometric evidence suggests that precipitation has wide ranging impacts on vital economic indicators such as agricultural yields, human capital, and even conflict. And yet paradoxically most macro-econometric evidence (especially in th...

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Main Authors:	Damania, Richard, Desbureaux, Sebastien, Zaveri, Esha
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2019
Subjects:	RAINFALL ECONOMIC GROWTH CLIMATE ECONOMICS AGRICULTURE
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/368581560778208239/Does-Rainfall-Matter-for-Economic-Growth-Evidence-from-Global-Sub-National-Data-1990-2014 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31901

id	okr-10986-31901
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-319012022-09-20T00:14:04Z Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014) Damania, Richard Desbureaux, Sebastien Zaveri, Esha RAINFALL ECONOMIC GROWTH CLIMATE ECONOMICS AGRICULTURE Much micro-econometric evidence suggests that precipitation has wide ranging impacts on vital economic indicators such as agricultural yields, human capital, and even conflict. And yet paradoxically most macro-econometric evidence (especially in the climate economy literature) finds that precipitation has no robust and significant impact on various measures of aggregate economic output. This paper argues that spatial aggregation of weather at the country level explains this result. The paper uses annual subnational gross domestic product data to show a concave relationship between precipitation and local gross domestic product growth between 1990 and 2014. It then demonstrates that when the data are aggregated at larger spatial scales, the impact decreases and eventually vanishes. The impact of precipitation on aggregate economic activity is predominantly felt in developing countries; it is insignificant in developed countries. Agriculture is found to be the dominant pathway. The results have significant consequences for measuring the economic impacts of climate change. 2019-06-19T15:35:30Z 2019-06-19T15:35:30Z 2019-06 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/368581560778208239/Does-Rainfall-Matter-for-Economic-Growth-Evidence-from-Global-Sub-National-Data-1990-2014 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31901 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8888 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	RAINFALL ECONOMIC GROWTH CLIMATE ECONOMICS AGRICULTURE
spellingShingle	RAINFALL ECONOMIC GROWTH CLIMATE ECONOMICS AGRICULTURE Damania, Richard Desbureaux, Sebastien Zaveri, Esha Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014)
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8888
description	Much micro-econometric evidence suggests that precipitation has wide ranging impacts on vital economic indicators such as agricultural yields, human capital, and even conflict. And yet paradoxically most macro-econometric evidence (especially in the climate economy literature) finds that precipitation has no robust and significant impact on various measures of aggregate economic output. This paper argues that spatial aggregation of weather at the country level explains this result. The paper uses annual subnational gross domestic product data to show a concave relationship between precipitation and local gross domestic product growth between 1990 and 2014. It then demonstrates that when the data are aggregated at larger spatial scales, the impact decreases and eventually vanishes. The impact of precipitation on aggregate economic activity is predominantly felt in developing countries; it is insignificant in developed countries. Agriculture is found to be the dominant pathway. The results have significant consequences for measuring the economic impacts of climate change.
format	Working Paper
author	Damania, Richard Desbureaux, Sebastien Zaveri, Esha
author_facet	Damania, Richard Desbureaux, Sebastien Zaveri, Esha
author_sort	Damania, Richard
title	Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014)
title_short	Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014)
title_full	Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014)
title_fullStr	Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014)
title_full_unstemmed	Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014)
title_sort	does rainfall matter for economic growth? evidence from global sub-national data (1990-2014)
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2019
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/368581560778208239/Does-Rainfall-Matter-for-Economic-Growth-Evidence-from-Global-Sub-National-Data-1990-2014 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31901
_version_	1764475326477369344

Does Rainfall Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from Global Sub-National Data (1990-2014)

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