Are Losses from Natural Disasters More Than Just Asset Losses? : The Role of Capital Aggregation, Sector Interactions, and Investment Behaviors

Hallegatte, Stephane ; Vogt-Schilb, Adrien

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: natural disasters;    economic losses;    economic analysis;    capital;    capital stock;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7885
RP-ID  :  WPS7885

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The welfare impact of a natural disasterdepends on its effect on consumption, not only on the directasset losses and human losses that are usually estimated andreported after disasters. This paper proposes a framework toassess disaster-related consumption losses, starting from anestimate of the asset losses, and leading to the followingfindings. First, output losses after a disaster destroyspart of the capital stock are better estimated by using theaverage—not the marginal—productivity of capital. A modelthat describes capital in the economy as a singlehomogeneous stock would systematically underestimatedisaster output losses, compared with a model that trackscapital in different sectors with limited reallocationoptions. Second, the net present value of disaster-causedconsumption losses decreases when reconstruction isaccelerated. With standard parameters, discountedconsumption losses are only 10 percent larger than assetlosses if reconstruction is completed in one year, comparedwith 80 percent if reconstruction takes 10 years. Third, fordisasters of similar magnitude, consumption losses areexpected to be lower where the productivity of capital ishigher, such as in capital-scarce developing countries. Thismechanism may partly compensate for the many other factorsthat make poor countries and poor people more vulnerable to disasters.