Lightning, IT Diffusion and Economic Growth across US States
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Lightning, IT Diffusion and Economic Growth across US States. / Andersen, Thomas Barnebeck; Bentzen, Jeanet; Dalgaard, Carl-Johan Lars; Selaya, Pablo.
Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, 2009.Research output: Working paper › Research
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TY - UNPB
T1 - Lightning, IT Diffusion and Economic Growth across US States
AU - Andersen, Thomas Barnebeck
AU - Bentzen, Jeanet
AU - Dalgaard, Carl-Johan Lars
AU - Selaya, Pablo
N1 - JEL classification: O33, O51, Q54
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Empirically, a higher frequency of lightning strikes is associated with slower growth in labor productivity across the 48 contiguous US states after 1990; before 1990 there is no correlation between growth and lightning. Other climate variables (e.g., temperature, rainfall and tornadoes) do not conform to this pattern. A viable explanation is that lightning influences IT diffusion. By causing voltage spikes and dips, a higher frequency of ground strikes leads to damaged digital equipment and thus higher IT user costs. Accordingly, the flash density (strikes per square km per year) should adversely affect the speed of IT diffusion. We find that lightning indeed seems to have slowed IT diffusion, conditional on standard controls. Hence, an increasing macroeconomic sensitivity to lightning may be due to the increasing importance of digital technologies for the growth process.
AB - Empirically, a higher frequency of lightning strikes is associated with slower growth in labor productivity across the 48 contiguous US states after 1990; before 1990 there is no correlation between growth and lightning. Other climate variables (e.g., temperature, rainfall and tornadoes) do not conform to this pattern. A viable explanation is that lightning influences IT diffusion. By causing voltage spikes and dips, a higher frequency of ground strikes leads to damaged digital equipment and thus higher IT user costs. Accordingly, the flash density (strikes per square km per year) should adversely affect the speed of IT diffusion. We find that lightning indeed seems to have slowed IT diffusion, conditional on standard controls. Hence, an increasing macroeconomic sensitivity to lightning may be due to the increasing importance of digital technologies for the growth process.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - climate
KW - IT diffusion
KW - economic growth
M3 - Working paper
BT - Lightning, IT Diffusion and Economic Growth across US States
PB - Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
ER -
ID: 14490866