Using quarterly temperature and employment data between 1990 and 2021, this paper uncovers nuanced evidence on the impact of seasonal temperature within US counties: higher winter temperature increases private sector employment growth while higher summer temperature decreases it. The impacts of higher temperature in mild seasons, fall and spring, are statistically insignificant. Moreover, the negative impact of higher summer temperature persists while the positive impact of higher temperature in the winter is more short-lived. The negative effects of a hotter summer are pervasive and persistent in many sectors: most significantly in “Construction” and “Leisure and Hospitality” but also in “Trade, Transport, and Utilities” and “Financial Activities.” In contrast, the positive effects of a warmer winter are less pervasive. The employment effect of a hotter summer has been more severe in recent decades.

Using quarterly temperature and sectoral value-added data for a large sample of advanced economies (AEs) and emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs), this paper uncovers nuanced effects of temperature on economic activity. For EMDEs, hotter spring and summer temperatures reduce growth in real value-added of manufacturing, and most significantly, of agriculture, while a warmer winter boosts it. For advanced countries (AEs), a hotter spring hurts growth in real value-added of all considered sectors: services, manufacturing and agriculture. For both country groups, the negative effect of a hotter spring is larger and more persistent than the positive effect of a warmer winter. Furthermore, the adverse impacts of hotter temperatures in advanced economies have accentuated in recent decades. This result suggests increased vulnerability to rising temperatures.

We use a new dataset to estimate the impact of temperature on economic activity at a more geographically and temporally disaggregated level than the existing literature. Analyzing 30-kilometer grid cells at a monthly frequency, temperature has a negative, highly statistically significant, and quantitatively large effect on output: a 1 °C increase in monthly temperature is associated with a 0.77 percent reduction in nighttime lights, a proxy for local economic activity. The effects of even a temporary increase in temperature persist for almost one year after the shock. Increases in temperature have an especially large, negative impact on growth in poorer countries, indicating that they are more vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

"The Final EIS differs from the Draft because of adjustments in the baseline (or No Action Alternative) and changes to some of the assumptions and data used for the original analysis. These changes are: 1) a decrease of the projected coal production from the study region without new Federal coal leasing; 2) earlier anticipated dates for construction and mining for the proposed coal lease tracts; 3) refinement of the coal reserves and projected production from the coal lease tracts"--Page 9, volume 1.