Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/247566 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] Econometrics [ISSN:] 2225-1146 [Volume:] 8 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] MDPI [Place:] Basel [Year:] 2020 [Pages:] 1-24
Publisher: 
MDPI, Basel
Abstract: 
I analyze damage from hurricane strikes on the United States since 1955. Using machine learning methods to select the most important drivers for damage, I show that large errors in a hurricane's predicted landfall location result in higher damage. This relationship holds across a wide range of model specifications and when controlling for ex-ante uncertainty and potential endogeneity. Using a counterfactual exercise I find that the cumulative reduction in damage from forecast improvements since 1970 is about $82 billion, which exceeds the U.S. government's spending on the forecasts and private willingness to pay for them.
Subjects: 
adaptation
model selection
natural disasters
uncertainty
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article

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