Also, climate-related shocks have uneven macroeconomic effects, with adverse consequences concentrated in countries with relatively hot climates, such as most low-income countries. See IMF (2017), “The Effects of Weather Shocks on Economic Activity: How Can Low-Income Countries Cope?”, World Economic Outlook, Chapter 3, October. 8 For price effects, see also Parker, M. (2018), “The impact of disasters on inflation”, Economics of Disasters and  Climate Change, Vol. 2(1), pp. 21–48. 9 See, for example, Gourio, F. (2015), “The effect of weather on first-quarter GDP”, Chicago Fed Letter, No 341. 10 Academic studies project that the risks of extreme heatwaves and floods will increase by around another 50%  this century. See Mann et al. (2018), “Projected changes in persistent extreme summer weather events: The role of quasi-resonant amplification”, Science Advances, Vol 4(10). And evidence of such an increase is already visible. According to the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, the number of global floods and other hydrological events has quadrupled since 1980 and doubled since 2004. See European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (2018), “Extreme weather events in Europe – Preparing for climate change adaptation: an update on EASAC’s 2013 study”, March; and Stott, P. (2016), “How climate change affects extreme weather events”, Science, Vol 352(6293), pp. 1517–1518. 11 See, for example, Weitzman, M. (2011), “Fat-Tailed Uncertainty in the Economics of Catastrophic Climate  Change”, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 5 (2), pp. 275–292; and Weitzman, M. (2009), “Additive damages, fat-tailed climate dynamics, and uncertain discounting”, Economics — The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal 3: 1–29.

The Kingdom achieved a surplus in its budget amounting to 5.2 percent of GDP, and recorded a surplus in the balance of payments for the twelfth year in a row which stood at Rls 250.3 billion. The inflation rate rose slightly from 5.1 percent in 2009 to 5.3 percent in 2010, and stood at 5.2 percent in October 2011. It is noteworthy that the inflation in recent years resulted from a rise in food prices and rents. The pace of growth in the national economy is expected to accelerate during the current year. Several factors contributed to such growth in GDP, including increased government spending to unprecedented levels, a large part of which was devoted to various development projects, and an increase in domestic banks’ finance to both the public and private sectors. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, In continuation of your care to fulfill the needs of the citizens and provide the requirements of a decent life, you issued a number of royal decrees, which will, Allah willing, contribute to enhancement of the citizens’ standard of living. You ordered the establishment of the Ministry of Housing and approved the building of 500,000 housing units in all regions of the Kingdom over the coming five years with allocations of Rls 250 billion. The limit of housing loans extended by the Real Estate Development Fund was increased from Rls 300,000 to Rls 500,000 which will hopefully provide more houses for citizens and constrain the inflationary pressures stemming from the increase in house rents.