From Pacific Warming to Global Economic Stress: El Niño Exposure, Transmission Channels, and an Integrated Agenda for Anticipatory Economic Resilience: A Review

Abstract

El Niño is commonly described as a climatic disturbance, yet its economic consequences are better understood as a networked shock that travels through food systems, water and energy systems, labor markets, public health, trade, logistics, fiscal accounts, and inflation. This qualitative literature review synthesizes peer-reviewed evidence published since 2020 and uses a ten-economy Asian exposure scorecard as an empirical organizing device. The scorecard highlights large cross-country differences in net food trade, food and staple weights in consumer prices, agricultural value added, agricultural employment, and aggregate structural vulnerability. India, the Philippines, and Indonesia display the highest aggregate exposure in the scorecard, while Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea exhibit lower direct agricultural sensitivity but remain exposed through imported food, energy, exchange-rate, and logistics channels. The review shows that realized losses cannot be inferred mechanically from exposure scores because El Niño effects are nonlinear, geographically heterogeneous, and conditioned by event type, forecast uncertainty, stocks, irrigation, trade structure, fiscal space, social protection, and institutional capacity. The central policy implication is that governments should treat forecast lead time as an economic asset. A forecast-to-finance-to-action framework is proposed to connect seasonal climate information with sectoral risk translation, pre-agreed triggers, contingent financing, targeted interventions, and post-event learning. Global resilience therefore requires differentiated national measures combined with regional trade coordination, shared early warning systems, strategic reserves, climate-resilient agriculture, energy-water planning, public-health preparedness, and anticipatory social protection.