The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Quality of Life in Small Island Developing States with Varying Levels of Export Diversification

Abstract

The increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events disproportionately impacts the world's most vulnerable populations, which makes understanding the relationship between a country's economic structure and the magnitude impact of these exogenous shocks imperative. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between export diversification and the magnitude impact of extreme weather events on quality of life (QOL). The analysis of the relevant literature informs the creation of the hypothesis, which predicts that less diverse export structures will experience larger negative impacts compared to their more diverse counterparts. Small Island Developing States (SIDS), as defined by the UN, are used as the sample in this study. Four linear regressions are utilized to approach this question and they use GDP per Capita and GDP Growth Rate as the QOL indicators. The models predicting GDP per Capita yielded statistically significant results, which communicate that less diverse export structures experience increasingly positive effects as the number of extreme weather events increase. To demonstrate this, the expected percentage increase in GDP per Capita for each additional extreme weather event across three increasingly less diverse export categories are included here. An additional extreme weather event is expected to increase GDP per Capita by 0.7% in the most diverse of these three categories, 1.262% in the middle, and 1.765% in the least diverse, all compared to the most diverse category which serves as our reference level. However, the GDP Growth Rate models' results did not return statistically significant results. It is the hope of this paper that its findings will inform economic adaptation and mitigation measures as climate change worsens.