QCGBF Virtual Seminar Series: The Macroeconomic Cost of Climate Volatility (Haroon Mumtaz & Piergiorgio Alessandri)

The Qatar Centre for Global Banking & Finance welcomes Haroon Mumtaz from Queen Mary University of London and Piergiorgio Alessandri from the Bank of Italy to present this virtual seminar on 'The Macroeconomic Cost of Climate Volatility'.

Paper Abstract

We study the impact of climate volatility on economic growth exploiting data on 133 countries between 1960 and 2005. We show that the conditional (ex ante) volatility of annual temperatures increased steadily over time, rendering climate conditions less predictable across countries, with important implications for growth. Controlling for concomitant changes in temperatures, a +1oC increase in temperature volatility causes on average a 0.9 per cent decline in GDP growth and a 1.3 per cent increase in the volatility of GDP. Unlike changes in average temperatures, changes in temperature volatility affect both rich and poor countries

Haroon Mumtaz is a Professor of Economics at Queen Mary University of London. His research interests are in applied Bayesian econometrics, monetary policy and International Macroeconomics. Previously Haroon was an economist at the Centre of Central Banking Studies in the Bank of England.

Piergiorgio Alessandri is an Advisor in the International Economics Directorate of the Bank of Italy. His research focuses on macro-financial linkages, the interactions between financial sector and real economy and the role of uncertainty in the business cycle. Piergiorgio holds a PhD in Economics from Birkbeck College, University of London, and is an external associate of the Birkbeck Centre for Applied Macroeconomics (BCAM). Prior to joining the Bank of Italy, he worked at the Bank of England (2006-2011) and held short-term positions at the European Central Bank, Norges Bank, International Monetary Fund.