On Tuesday, July 1 at 10:00 am ET, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will introduce a new research product focused on assessing the local economic impact of natural disasters.
Supporting a better understanding of local and regional economic activity is critical to the Federal Reserve’s mission. However, current data limitations hinder analysis of the economic and human costs of natural disasters, especially on a local scale. The New York Fed’s Losses from Natural Disasters represents the first publicly available comprehensive dataset on county-level damages, injuries, and fatalities from natural disasters in the United States. Since the dataset can be easily matched with county-level data on economic activity and employment, it enables precise analysis of the impact of extreme weather events on local economies and banking networks.
The dataset will be updated twice a year, with the prior-year data released every August and revisions to the dataset released in February of the following year.
In conjunction with the new product, the New York Fed will publish a Liberty Street Economics blog post exploring the methodology and learnings from the dataset.
