Benjamin Crampton, Rupert-Hu Gilman and Rebecca Mari.
With climate change set to increase the frequency and intensity of flooding in the UK, it is important to deepen our understanding of the potential microeconomic impacts that may propagate into the macroeconomy. We integrate firm-level corporate records, with Ordnance Survey business-premise address information and publicly available flood maps to investigate two questions. First, what characteristics of firms are associated to the historical exposure and current risk of flooding; and second, what is the impact of flood events on corporate outcomes. We find significant sectoral, spatial and structural heterogeneity among firms in their risk and exposure to flooding. Larger firms are more likely to locate in flood zones, while small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and natural-resource-related industries have historically been impacted most heavily.
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