Agarwal, S., Choudhury, S. P., Fan, M., & Klapper, L. (2025).  The impact of Atlantic hurricanes on business activity (Policy Research Working Paper Series 11217). The World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/4a51f770-b6bc-4426-a0a1-1b4d814b551c/content

This paper quantifies the short-run economic impact of 21 Atlantic hurricanes on U.S. local business activity from 2017 to 2024 using anonymized Mastercard transaction data aggregated by ZIP code. On average, hurricanes
reduce merchant sales by 12.4 percent during the preparation, impact, and recovery phases—an estimated US$1.38
billion in lost revenue per storm. Substitution in spending across nearby areas or large online platforms is limited, indi-
cating widespread local consumption declines. Economic disruption varies more by industry than storm intensity,
with independent stores hit harder than chains. Local businesses with larger online presence face smaller, shorter sales declines, showing greater resilience.

Agarwal S., Fan, M., & Qin, Y. (2025). Avoid urban development policy that fuels climate risk, Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02365-3

Urban development policies, designed to improve city resilience, could unintentionally increase the exposure to climate risk. This Comment discusses the impact of misaligned incentives, miscalculated benefits and costs, and overlooked behavioural responses on policy outcomes, as well as future directions.

Adbi, A., Agarwal, S., & Ghosh, P. (2025). Urban noise pollution and learning in developing economies, Nature Cities 2, 6-7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00189-4

Many cities in the developing world are witnessing high noise pollution due to infrastructure development and growing traffic. Urban planning interventions may be necessary to mitigate potential adverse effect of noise pollution on the learning outcomes of young residents in developing economies.

Agarwal, S., Qin, Y., Sing, T. F., & Zhan, C. (2025) Sea level rise risks, adaptation strategies, and real estate prices in Singapore. Journal of Public Economics, 241 (105290), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105290

This study exploits the Singapore Prime Minister’s announcement of the areas affected by sea level rise (SLR) within the country and its adaptation strategies valued at 100 billion Singapore dollars. Utilizing transaction-level data with exact locations, we find that public housing prices dropped by 7.2% in SLR areas four years after the announcement relative to non-SLR areas. In SLR areas with adaptation, the price depreciation was mitigated to 0.6%. In the private housing sector, freehold properties benefit more from adaptation strategies than leasehold properties. We calibrate the long-term discount rates before and after the shock at 2.27% and 2.14% in SLR areas and 2.35% and 2.12% in SLR areas with adaptation, respectively. (JEL H43, R21, R28, R38, R51, Q54)

Agarwal, S., Ghosh, P., & Zheng, H.(2024). Consumption response to a natural disaster: Evidence of price and income shocks from Chennai flood, Energy Economics, 131 (107323), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107323

In this paper, we utilize monthly individual-level financial data and item-level supermarket sales data to study how consumption responds to one of the costliest natural disasters in India. We find that consumption dropped by 11% during the disaster, 65% of which was recovered after the disaster. On average, consumption per capita dropped by $312 per year, which costs about 5% of the GDP. We also show that natural disasters depressed consumption through income shocks instead of price shocks. Consumers smooth consumption using credit card, banks loans and wealth in coping with the shocks.