Kamiar Mohaddes 

Climate change is an existential threat to the world economy, with complex, evolving and nonlinear dynamics that remain a source of great uncertainty. There is a bourgeoning literature on the economic impact of climate change, but research on how climate change affects sovereign risks is limited. This paper provides forward-looking regional analysis of the effects of climate change on sovereign creditworthiness, probability of default and the cost of borrowing for the Caribbean economies. Our results indicate that there is substantial variation in the sensitivity of ratings to climate change across the region which is due to the non-linear nature of ratings. Our findings improve the identification and management of sovereign climate risk and provides a forward-looking assessment of how climate change could affect the cost of accessing international finance. As such, it leads to a suite of policy options for countries in the region.

Project Update - April 2024

We show that climate change has a long-lasting adverse impact on real output in various states and economic sectors, and on labour productivity and employment in the United States. Moreover, in contrast to most cross-country results, our within U.S. estimates tend to be asymmetrical with respect to deviations of climate variables (including precipitation) from their historical norms.

Project Update - August 2023

Project Update - April 2022

This paper uses a threshold-augmented Global VAR model to quantify the macroeconomic effects of countries’ discretionary fiscal actions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its fallout. Our results are threefold:

(1) fiscal policy is playing a key role in mitigating the effects of the pandemic; (2) all else equal, countries that implemented larger fiscal support are expected to experience less output contractions; (3) emerging markets are also benefiting from the synchronized fiscal actions globally through the spillover channel and reduced financial market volatility.

Project Update - August 2021

Enthusiasm for ‘greening the financial system’ is welcome, but a fundamental challenge remains: financial decision makers lack the necessary information. It is not enough to know that climate change is bad. Markets need credible, digestible information on how climate change translates into material risks. To bridge the gap between climate science and real-world financial indicators, we simulate the effect of climate change on sovereign credit ratings for 108 countries, creating the world’s first climate-adjusted sovereign credit rating. Under various warming scenarios, we find evidence of climate-induced sovereign downgrades as early as 2030, increasing in intensity and across more countries over the century. We find strong evidence that stringent climate policy consistent with limiting warming to below 2°C, honouring the Paris Climate Agreement, and following RCP 2.6 could nearly eliminate the effect of climate change on ratings. In contrast, under higher emissions scenarios (i.e., RCP 8.5), 63 sovereigns experience climate-induced downgrades by 2030, with an average reduction of 1.02 notches, rising to 80 sovereigns facing an average downgrade of 2.48 notches by 2100. We calculate the effect of climate-induced sovereign downgrades on the cost of corporate and sovereign debt. Across the sample, climate change could increase the annual interest payments on sovereign debt by US$ 22–33 billion under RCP 2.6, rising to US$ 137–205 billion under RCP 8.5. The additional cost to corporates is US$ 7.2–12.6 billion under RCP 2.6, and US$ 35.8–62.6 billion under RCP 8.5.  

Project Update - April 2023

Project Update - April 2021