This paper estimates the effect of extreme weather and climate events on the subjective wellbeing
of US residents. We match forty two billion-dollar disaster events with individual survey
data between 2005 and 2010. We find that being affected by a disaster has a negative and robust
impact on life satisfaction that disappears 6 to 8 months after the event. In our sample severe
storms are the main culprit in the reduction of life satisfaction; droughts also have a negative
impact on life satisfaction and exhibit a more persistent effect
