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Well-being effects of extreme weather events in the United States

Mona Ahmadiani and Susana Ferreira

Resource and Energy Economics, 2021, vol. 64, issue C

Abstract: The increase in weather and climate disasters in recent years has prompted an interest in analyzing their consequences and the mitigation and adaptation measures that can help minimize their potentially large impacts on individuals’ welfare. We match thirty-one billion-dollar disasters with individual survey data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to estimate the effect of extreme weather events on the subjective well-being of U.S. residents. Our results indicate that natural disasters have a negative and robust impact on subjective well-being in the affected communities, and that, on average, this impact peaks 6 months after the event, and then decays over time. We then investigate the attenuating impact of health care access, flood insurance, and governmental assistance programs and find a partial compensating role for risk-transfer and relief measures. We also find that stronger emotional and social support mitigates the negative impact of natural disasters.

Keywords: Subjective well-being; Extreme weather; Disasters; Climate change; Mental health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 I38 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 (7)

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Working Paper: Well-being Effects of Extreme Weather Events in the United States (2018) Downloads
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:resene:v:64:y:2021:i:c:s092876552030422x

DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2020.101213

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