Weather shocks and firm exports in developing countries

In this paper, we study how weather shocks affect firm-level exports in low and middle income countries. While the impacts are negative on average, we find that large firms are significantly less affected. This feature is robust across sub-samples, specifications and confounding factors. We then examine the aggregate implications of these firm-level effects by studying changes in total exports under different climate scenarios by the end of the century. Results show that the overall trade-deterring effect of future weather conditions would be lower if there were more large firms in low and middle income countries. It suggests that the existing firm-size distribution may increase the aggregate cost of climate change.