Health Consequences of the Russian Weather

This paper examines and quantifies the impact of weather shocks on all-cause, cardiovascular-, and respiratory-cause mortality for different age groups in Russia. Using a regional panel data analysis from 1989 to 2014, we find that both hot and cold days cause an increase in all-cause and cause-specific mortality. On the other hand, days with extremely cold temperature (below − 30 °C) may have an opposite impact and reduce mortality. Overall, our findings suggest that the economic costs of all-cause mortality due to one day with hot and cold temperatures correspond to 10.25 million USD and 7.91 million USD or 0.28% and 0.22% of daily GDP in Russia, respectively. The results also suggest that regions frequently experiencing hot and cold temperatures have adapted to these temperatures. © 2016 Elsevier B.V.Russian Science Foundation, RSF: 15-18-10014The authors acknowledge the support from the Russian Science Foundation Grant No. 15-18-10014 “Projection of optimal socio-economic systems in turbulence of external and internal environment”. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and have not been endorsed by the Russian Science Foundation. We are grateful to two anonymous referees, Maria A. Cunha e Sá, Richard Frensch, Vladimir Kozlov, Alexander Nepp, Luis C. Nunes, Renato Rosa, and Hans Wiesmeth for valuable comments and suggestions that helped improve the paper