Seminars

Thursday, November 14th, 2024

Pierre Uginet (Ecole d'Economie de Paris) will present "Meltwater, seasonality and economic activity in South Asia”.

Abstract:

While climate change is projected to profoundly alter the processes of solid water melt, the connections between seasonal snowpack melt, glacier shrinkage, and downstream economic activities remain unclear. In this paper, through an econometric analysis of meltwater shocks and overall economic activity at sub-national levels, I aim to enhance our understanding of whether and how hydrological conditions affect economic development. I construct a novel dataset of pixel-level monthly meltwater shocks based on snow and ice coverage and temperature, which I combine with data on nighttime light (NTL) intensity across the entire region of Himalayan-fed watersheds. The dataset spans from 2000 to 2013. I estimate the month-specific annual change in economic activity in a watershed as a function of meltwater shocks. This shock measure accounts for all upstream watersheds’ contributions. The main findings suggest that (i) economic development suffers from both excess and shortage in meltwater volumes, (ii) agriculture serves as the primary channel through which impacts of negative meltwater shocks propagate through the economy, (iii) positive meltwater shocks create torrential floods that act negatively on both the level and the growth rate of economic activities and (iv) groundwater pumping can mitigate the effects of meltwater shocks. The main implications for economic research are that upstream hydrological conditions causally impact downstream economic development.