Abstract

The Impact of Weather on the Economy: A Zip Code Analysis
Track: Real-Time and Big Data
Authors: Jess Chen

How does weather influence the local economy? Most studies examine the country, state or county level. Using new economic data, we estimate impacts on U.S. zip codes. We develop a unique algorithm for estimating zip code employment and wages, and we combine data on weather fluctuations through spatial averaging in GIS. We then estimate the impact of weather variation on local employment and wages for the period 1990-2015 and show weather’s effects by space, time and sector.