| IOF SEMINAR – January 10, 2025 |
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| The Social Value of Hurricane Forecasts |
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| What is the impact and value of hurricane forecasts? We study this question using newly-collected forecast data for the universe of land-falling US hurricanes between 2005–2022. We find higher wind speed forecasts increase pre-landfall protective spending. Erroneous under-forecasts of wind speed increase hurricane damage and after-hurricane rebuilding expenditures. Our main contribution is a new theoretically-grounded approach for estimating the marginal value of forecast improvements. We find that the average annual improvement reduced total per-hurricane costs, inclusive of unobserved protective spending, by over $500,000 per county. Improvements since 2007 reduced costs by 19%, averaging $2 billion per hurricane. This exceeds the annual budget for all federal weather forecasting. |
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Dr. Renato Molina
Assistant Professor
Environmental and Resource Economics
Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science
University of Miami |
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Friday, January 10, 2025 – 11:00am – 12:00 pm
Over Zoom |
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