Previous literature has extensively studied the role of extreme weather events on various socio-economic outcomes. However, some important questions and underlying mechanisms remain unexplored. For example, do extreme weather shocks change perceptions of relative position among others within a neighborhood or community, even when the entire locality is exposed to an adverse weather shock? If weather shocks affect voting outcomes, then does changes in political beliefs work as a mediating factor? Can such shocks shape interpersonal behavior through intimate partner violence? Further, what is the role of social programs and access to public goods and services in attenuating the negative consequences of such adverse weather events? The general theme of this dissertation revolves around how weather shocks, specifically in the form of excess rainfall and extreme cold temperature shocks, affect perceptions of relative deprivation, political beliefs, and intimate partner violence. I study these in the context of a developing country- Peru.The first chapter examines how covariate shocks – like excess rainfall- can shape perceptions of relative deprivation. Perceptions of relative deprivation or feelings of relative poverty affect a range of economic and behavioral outcomes, such as support for redistribution, political attitudes, hostility, and risky behavior. Using household-level longitudinal data for Peru, I provide novel evidence showing that exposure to excess rainfall shocks increases the likelihood that households perceive their standard of living to be worse off relative to the other households in the locality. Two fundamental mechanisms could explain this- firstly, the differential effect of excess rainfall shocks across objective outcomes suggests a widening economic gap reflected in standard relative deprivation measures, and secondly, misperceptions about the losses of other households within a locality could explain the increase in perceived relative deprivation. The impact is particularly larger for historically underprivileged and less developed communities. I show that social protection programs, such as conditional cash transfers and in-kind food assistance programs, can attenuate the effect of rainfall shocks on perceived relative deprivation. Finally, I show an association between perceived relative deprivation and political beliefs related to the functioning of democracy and support for authoritarian regimes in Peru.The second chapter studies how extreme cold temperature shocks can lead to intimate partner violence among Peruvian women. Violence against women --- in particular, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) --- is a major health concern for women across the world. Using a dataset that matches women to weather exposure, we find that overall, frost shocks increase IPV: 10-degree hours below -9C increases the probability of experiencing domestic violence by 0.5 percentage points. These effects are larger for more extreme temperature thresholds. We provide evidence that frosts impact IPV through two main channels. First, extreme cold lowers income, which in turn affects IPV. Second, extreme cold limits time spent outside of the household, potentially increasing the exposure of women to violent partners. To our knowledge, we are the first to measure the relative significance of these two channels by using variation in frost timing to distinguish shocks that affect IPV through changes in income from those that act through time spent indoors. We find that the effect of frosts on IPV is mostly driven by frosts that occur during the growing season when 10-degree hours below -9C increase the probability of experiencing IPV by 1.5 percentage points. In contrast, non-growing season frosts have no statistically significant effects on IPV.The final chapter further examines how frost shocks can affect confidence in government and political institutions. Political trust or perceptions of government and political institutions can affect various outcomes, such as compliance with laws and demand for public goods. We examine how extreme weather affects individuals' political beliefs, such as how well democracy functions in Peru. We construct a unique dataset containing spatially and temporally specific cold temperature shocks and find that extreme cold reduces positive perceptions of democracy. We further find that extreme cold shocks reduce civic engagement in formal democratic institutions (as measured by participation in national elections), possibly due to increased political mistrust. However, participation in local neighborhood associations increases due to extreme cold shocks, possibly due to an adaptive coping strategy. We provide evidence that these effects work through several mechanisms: economic losses, increased incidence of illness, and higher crimes. Finally, we find that higher coverage of government-provided goods and services, namely, social programs, public hospitals, and police resources, can attenuate the adverse effects of extreme cold.
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