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American Economic Review Vol. 105 No. 5 2015

Satellites, Self-reports, and Submersion: Exposure to Floods in Bangladesh

Raymond Guiteras1; Amir Jina2; Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak3

1 Department of Economics, University of Maryland, 3114 Tydings Hall, College Park, MD 20742 (e-mail: ) · 2 Department of Economics, University of Chicago, 5757 S. University Ave., Chicago, IL 60637 (e-mail: ) · 3 School of Management, Yale University, Evans 3502, 165 Whitney Avenue, PO Box 208200, New Haven, CT 06520 (e-mail: )

Abstract

A burgeoning “Climate-Economy” literature has uncovered many effects of changes in temperature and precipitation on economic activity, but has made considerably less progress in modeling the effects of other associated phenomena, like natural disasters. We develop new, objective data on floods, focusing on Bangladesh. We show that rainfall and self-reported exposure are weak proxies for true flood exposure. These data allow us to study adaptation, giving accurate measures of both long-term averages and short term variation in exposure. This is important in studying climate change impacts, as people will not only experience new exposures, but also experience them differently.

DOI
10.1257/aer.p20151095
Volume
105
Issue
5
Pages
232-236
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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