No Calm Before the Storm: Typhoons, Shipping, and Trade

Keita Abe, Renato Molina, Kenta Tanaka and Juan Carlos Villaseñor-Derbez

No 12746, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Extreme weather is becoming more frequent and severe worldwide, yet its consequences for global trade channels remain an open question. This paper quantifies the cost of extreme weather to maritime trade. Integrating daily typhoon wind-swath data with hundreds of thousands of vessel voyages in Japanese waters, we document that maritime traffic falls by up to roughly 50% on typhoon-exposed open-ocean cells and by about 7% at typhoon-exposed ports. A voyage-level framework identifies $119 million in direct shipping-industry costs over 2013–2021. This disruption implies a total trade-volume welfare loss of $117.8 million. Combining the two channels yields a central total welfare estimate of approximately $237 million. As climate change intensifies, the invisible costs associated with increased extreme weather will scale accordingly, highlighting a vital dimension of climate risk that remains overlooked by adaptation frameworks focused solely on catastrophic land-based destruction.

Keywords: typhoons; maritime shipping; trade costs; natural disasters; Japan; AIS data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F18 Q54 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12746

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