Hurricanes, economic growth and transmission channels; Empirical evidence for countries on differing levels of development

While the short-term growth consequences of natural disasters are comparatively well studied, little is known about the long-run perspective. Based on truly exogenous storm indicators, derived from a meteorological database, we show that the growth effects of tropical storms go well beyond the short-term perspective. A disaggregated analysis reveals that the reaction of economic growth to the occurrence of hurricanes depends strongly on the level of development of the afflicted countries with developing countries being most negatively affected. We also consider through which channels tropical storms affect long-run growth and find the investment share as well as fertility to react systematically to tropical storms.