Climate warming is expected to increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme events in the mid to long term. Here, we combine a model of forest management with inter-country input-output tables to estimate the economic effect on the EU-28 and USA economies of changes in the output of the forestry and logging sectors due to extreme forest disturbance events. Given our model results, we estimate that the impact on the EU-28 economy will be equivalent to the value of wood damaged multiplied 3.32 fold [3.00-3.44]. We find that the economic cost of a global pan-European extreme event (a pulse of 450 M m3) could be 120.4 billion Euros in the EU-28 and and 1.7 billion in the USA (i.e. 0.926 and 0.015% of their respective GDPs). Finally, we explore how to design incentives to increase the economic resilience of the response of forestry and logging companies to expected future climate change. Using a heterogeneous companies model, we show that payments to landowners to conserve forest increase economic resilience.