Flood Risk Mapping and the Distributional Impacts of Climate Information

Joakim Weill ()
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Joakim Weill: Federal Reserve Board of Governors

No 2023.10, Working Papers from FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

Abstract: This paper examines the provision of official flood risk information in the United States and its distributional impacts on residential flood insurance take-up. Assembling all flood maps produced after Hurricane Katrina, I document that updated maps decreased the number of properties zoned in high-risk floodplains and incorrectly omitted five million properties, primarily in neighborhoods with more Black and Hispanic residents. Leveraging the staggered timing of map updates, I estimate they decreased flood insurance take-up and exacerbated racial disparities in insurance coverage. Correcting flood maps could increase welfare by $20 billion annually, but past map updates distorted risk and price signals.

Keywords: flood risk; climate adaptation; information provision (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D8 G52 Q54 Q58 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 95 pages
Date: 2023-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://faere.fr/pub/WorkingPapers/Weill_FAERE_WP2023.10.pdf First version, 2019 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fae:wpaper:2023.10

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