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From the great plains to the eastern seaboard, a heat wave has swept through much of the United States, with temperatures hovering above 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the east coast and 110 degrees on weekends.
In fact, July should be the hottest month ever recorded in the world.
It turns out that heat waves can have a direct impact on the amount of work produced and earned by workers on a given day. In fact, according to recent research, a hot day can reduce productivity by 24%.
In a 2014 article, economists Tatyana Deryugina of the University of Illinois and Solomon Hsiang of the University of California at Berkeley found that days with higher temperatures had an economic impact surprisingly important negative.
"With hot days becoming more common, we expect lower economic productivity," Hsiang told NPR's "Marketplace" in a recent interview. "It will probably be quite subtle, because one day is a little warmer, you are a little less productive, but these days will add up."
The research process
In their paper, Deryugina and Hsiang combined the county-level temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Economic Analysis's revenue data from 1969 to 2011 to understand the impact of hot days on economic productivity.
Using a model that could take into account county differences and long-term national economic trends, they found that warm, hot days had lower economic productivity than colder days. Their main result was that per capita income in US counties tended to rise with temperature up to about 59 ° F, and then drop as the temperature got warmer.
For example, they found that one day with an average temperature of about 84 ° F would lower the annual income in a county by 0.065% compared to a day when it was rather 59 ° F Although this is a slight decrease in total annual income, they noted that this meant that the day of 84 degrees was about 24% less productive than on an average day.
The main conclusions
The hottest days, with temperatures above 86 ° F, have meant that the annual income of a county has been 0.076% lower at 59 degrees a day. This would mean that the hottest days would be about 28% less productive than an average day.
In dollars, they reported that "changing the temperature of a day from 15 ° C to 29 ° C reduces the county's annual per capita income by $ 16.71 on average". This means that in the average US county, economic activity per person on a hot day of 84 degrees would be less than about $ 17 compared to a cold day of 59 degrees. By adjusting county populations, they found that hot days cost the average American about $ 4.80.
Although this decline in income is quite small on an individual basis, warm temperatures in much of the United States can add up and have a greater impact on national economic activity as a whole. According to estimates, a heat wave affecting one third of the country, or 100 million Americans, would have an economic cost of about half a billion dollars, based on the estimate of 4 , $ 80 per person mentioned above.
Read more: These charts show record temperatures in June, scientists predict July could be the hottest month ever recorded on Earth
Mapping of major trends
Deryugina and Hsiang found that most of the economic damage on hot days came from the agricultural sector. This is not surprising, as heat and drought can have quite obvious direct effects on crop yields.
However, they found that non-agricultural productivity also tended to decline at higher temperatures, most often among workers in temperature-sensitive sectors working outdoors or in buildings exposed to outside temperatures in need. to take more breaks or work more slowly.
The increase in temperatures can have other effects on worker productivity. "People make mathematical mistakes when the temperature rises, so if you do a very technical job, you run the risk of making mistakes," Hsiang told Marketplace.
The researchers noted that if climate change resulted in higher average temperatures and warmer days, this economic impact could increase in the future. Using their model to determine the impact of hot days on productivity, they found that with a "status quo" climate change projection, the higher number of hot days could result in lower economic growth 0.12 percentage points per year. They also stressed that it would only act on warmer days and not other possible effects of climate change, such as floods or natural disasters.
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