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Texas electrical grid remains vulnerable to extreme weather events
New regulations, weatherization standards and operational changes have addressed many shortcomings, but some critical gaps persist.
Discussion Paper
Banks versus Hurricanes
The impacts of hurricanes analyzed in the previous post in this series may be far-reaching in the Second District. In a new Staff Report, we study how banks in Puerto Rico fared after Hurricane Maria struck the island on September 17, 2017. Maria makes a worst case in some respects because the economy and banks there were vulnerable beforehand, and because Maria struck just two weeks after Hurricane Irma flooded the island. Despite the immense destruction and disruption Maria caused, we find that the island’s economy and banks recovered surprisingly quickly. We discuss the various ...
Residential solar power shines on, backed by securitized lending
Residential solar is a small and rapidly expanding sector, and the securitization market—the packaging of loans to investors—has been one of the most popular sources of funding for new solar installations.
Working Paper
Industrial Composition of Syndicated Loans and Banks’ Climate Commitments
In the past two decades, a number of banks joined global initiatives aimed to mitigate climate change by “greening” their asset portfolios. We study whether banks that made such commitments have a different emission exposure of their portfolios of syndicated loans than banks that did not. We rely on loan-level information with global coverage combined with country-industry information on emissions. We find that all banks have reduced their loan-emission exposures over the last 8 years. However, we do not find differences between banks that did and those that did not signal their ...
Journal Article
Climate-Related Financial Stability Risks for the United States: Methods and Applications
The authors review ten broad classes of models that have been used to study potential financial stability risks arising from climate change in the United States. Their lens is primarily methodological: They describe each modeling technique, its advantages and disadvantages, and its key results. They find that statistical methods, based on reduced-form econometrics, are the most used tool, followed by general equilibrium models. While no approach in isolation addresses the complexity of climate-related financial stability risks, they discuss how existing techniques can be combined to inform ...
Discussion Paper
Small Business Recovery after Natural Disasters in the Fed’s Second District
A previous Liberty Street Economics post found that minority-owned small businesses in the Federal Reserve’s Second District have been particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. Here we focus on the aftermath of disasters (such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts, and winter storms) and examine disparities in the ability of these firms to reopen their businesses and access disaster relief. Our results indicate that while white- and minority-owned firms remain closed for similar durations, the latter are more reliant on external funding from government and private sources to cope ...
Discussion Paper
What Do Climate Risk Indices Measure?
As interest in understanding the economic impacts of climate change grows, the climate economics and finance literature has developed a number of indices to quantify climate risks. Various approaches have been employed, utilizing firm-level emissions data, financial market data (from equity and derivatives markets), or textual data. Focusing on the latter approach, we conduct descriptive analyses of six text-based climate risk indices from published or well-cited papers. In this blog post, we highlight the differences and commonalities across these indices.
Journal Article
Understanding the Linkages between Climate Change and Inequality in the United States
The authors conduct a review of the existing academic literature to outline possible links between climate change and inequality in the United States. First, researchers have shown that the impact of both physical and transition risks may be uneven across location, income, race, and age. This is driven by a region’s geography as well as its ability to adapt. Second, measures that individuals and governments take to adapt to climate change and to transition to lower emissions risk increasing inequality. Finally, while federal aid and insurance coverage can mitigate the direct impact of ...
Report
Understanding the Linkages between Climate Change and Inequality in the United States
We conduct a review of the existing academic literature to outline possible links between climate change and inequality in the United States. First, researchers have shown that the impact of both physical and transition risks may be uneven across location, income, race, and age. This is driven by a region’s geography as well as its adaptation capabilities. Second, measures that individuals and governments take to adapt to climate change and transition to lower emissions risk increasing inequality. Finally, while federal aid and insurance coverage can mitigate the direct impact of physical ...
Journal Article
Central Banks and Climate Risks
Some researchers look at climate change and see economic uncertainty. Central banks are beginning to take notice