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Market expectations of a warming climate

Wolfram Schlenker and Charles Taylor

Journal of Financial Economics, 2021, vol. 142, issue 2, 627-640

Abstract: We compare prices of financial derivatives whose payouts are based on future weather outcomes to CMIP5 climate model predictions as well as observed weather station data across eight cities in the US from 2001 through 2020. Derivative prices respond both to short-term weather forecasts for the next two weeks and longer-term warming trends. We show that the long-term trends in derivative prices are comparable to station-level data and climate model output. The one exception is February in the northeastern US, where financial markets price in a polar vortex-induced cooling effect, a recent scientific finding that was not present in the older CMIP5 climate output. When looking at the spatial and temporal heterogeneity in trends, futures prices are more aligned with climate model output than observed weather station trends, suggesting that market participants closely align their expectations with scientific projections rather than recent observations.

Keywords: Market expectations; Belief formation; Weather markets; Climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D84 Q02 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:142:y:2021:i:2:p:627-640

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2020.08.019

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