Heat and Observed Economic Activity in the Rich Urban Tropics

Eric Fesselmeyer, Haoming Liu, Alberto Salvo and Rhita P B Simorangkir

The Economic Journal, 2024, vol. 134, issue 664, 3445-3460

Abstract: We use space- and time-resolved mobility data to assess how heat impacts Singapore, a rich city state and arguably a harbinger of what is to come in the urbanising tropics. Singapore’s offices, factories, malls, buses and trains are widely air conditioned, its public schools less so. We document increased attendance and commuting to workplaces, malls and the more air-conditioned schools on hotter relative to cooler days, particularly by low-income residents with limited use of adaptive technologies at home. Investment by rich cities may attenuate heat’s pervasive negative consequences on productive outcomes, yet this may worsen the climate emergency in the long run.

Date: 2024
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