The Macroeconomic Impacts of Natural Disasters: The Case of Floods

We use panel vector autoregression models to trace the dynamic response of output growth to flood shocks, using new data on large flood events in 135 countries between 1985 and 2008. Flood shocks tend to have a positive and significant average impact on per capita GDP growth. However, this effect is limited to developing countries and to moderate floods. The positive impact of floods is larger and more significant in the agricultural sector; while floods seem to have a direct effect on agricultural growth rates in developing countries, their effect on nonagricultural growth rates is mainly indirect. (JEL: O11, Q54)