Extreme weather events are expected to increase with climate change. Such events are detrimental for local economic activity but could also affect countries that are not directly exposed through global agricultural production shortfalls and price surges. Here, estimations for 75 countries show that increases in global agricultural commodity prices caused by harvest or weather disruptions in other regions of the world significantly curtail economic activity. The impact is considerably stronger in advanced countries, despite relatively lower shares of food in household expenditures. Effects are weaker when countries are net exporters of agricultural products, have large agricultural sectors and/or are less integrated in global markets for non-agricultural trade. Once we control for these characteristics, the relationship between the country’s income per capita and the economic repercussions becomes negative. Overall, these findings suggest that the consequences of climate change on advanced countries, particularly through food prices, may be larger than previously thought.

预计极端天气事件将随着气候变化而增加。此类事件不利于当地经济活动，但也可能影响未直接受到全球农业生产短缺和价格飙升影响的国家。在这里，对 75 个国家/地区的估计表明，由于世界其他地区的收成或天气中断导致全球农产品价格上涨显着抑制了经济活动。尽管食品在家庭支出中的份额相对较低，但发达国家的影响要大得多。当国家是农产品净出口国、拥有庞大的农业部门和/或在非农业贸易的全球市场中整合程度较低时，影响较弱。一旦我们控制了这些特征，该国人均收入与经济影响之间的关系变为负数。总体而言，这些研究结果表明，气候变化对发达国家的影响，尤其是食品价格的影响，可能比以前想象的要大。