"For years
economists have debated whether destructive storms are even bad for a country's
economy. To a
non-economist, the ill effects of a storm might seem intuitive, but economists
have a knack for finding plausible counterintuitive explanations."
"Hsiang and Jina looked at 6,712 cyclones, typhoons,
and hurricanes observed from 1950 to 2008 and the economic fortunes of the
countries they struck in the years that followed. With their data, Jina and
Hsiang can decisively say: These storms are bad—very bad—for economic growth."
"The
effects are lasting: Overall, they find that "each additional meter per
second of annual nationally-averaged wind exposure lowers per capita economic
output 0.37 percent 20 years later" (emphasis
added). Put simply, economies "do not recover in the long run."
So what
does this mean for a planet with a changing climate?"
