Labor Market Impacts of Flooding in the United States

Judhajit Chakraborty, Jude Bayham, Christopher Goemans, Dale Manning, Dielza Muriqi and Jordan Suter

No 360981, 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: This study investigates the labor market consequences of floods – historically among the most lethal and expensive natural disasters in the United States. Using quarterly, county-level employment and wage data spanning 1996-2023, our empirical approach distinguishes between flash floods and floods with gradual, slower onset patterns (non-flash floods). The analysis explores how the impacts of flood events vary across temporal windows (sub-annual versus annual), location (inland versus coastal counties), sectors, and existing labor market conditions. Our results show that an additional day of flash floods in a quarter reduces county-level employment and wages by 0.13% and 0.15% respectively. We find that total wages decreased by $6.2 billion per year (in 2023 USD) between 1996 and 2023 as a result of flash and non-flash floods. Heterogeneous effects reveal that economically vulnerable counties experience larger negative impacts from both flood types and that both coastal and inland counties face negative economic disruptions. Our findings underscore that sub-annual impacts are crucial for understanding flood impacts and designing policies to build resilience against shocks.

Keywords: International; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea25:360981

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.360981

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