The price effects of typhoon exposure on the Philippine rice markets: a stacked event study approach
Date
2026-01-06
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Abstract
With the Philippines remaining as one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, understanding the inflationary impact of typhoons on rice is critical for food security. This thesis utilizes a Stacked Event Study approach to evaluate whether there is a shift in provincial-level retail rice price dynamics following the occurrence of tropical cyclones. With the usage of PSA’s Retail Price Survey data on regular-milled (RMR) and well-milled rice (WMR) prices from 2012 to 2020, together with Galloway et al.’s (2025) tropical cyclone data, findings show that on the month of its landfall, the
occurrence of a Class 6 typhoon or Super Typhoon causes a 2.3% increase in RMR prices, while for WMR, a 3.2% increase. These price effects hold at a sustained average of a 3.4% and 4.6% increase across the next six (6) months for RMR and WMR prices, respectively. For both RMR and WMR, Class 0 storms or tropical depressions were found to have decreased rice prices following the event; however, we take caution in concluding causality due to inconsistencies with harvesting cycles and the potential effect of the productive rainfall. Tropical cyclones of Classes 1 to 5, on the other hand, did not produce statistically significant results. These results suggest policy implications for more targeted government interventions to reduce shocks to the Philippine rice markets following typhoons.
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"typhoons, tropical cyclones, rice, rice prices, regular-milled rice (RMR), well-milled rice (WMR), stacked-event study, Philippines"