Assessing the Macroeconomic Impacts of Natural Disasters : Are there Any?

Hochrainer, Stefan

关键词: AGRICULTURE;    ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE;    ANNUAL GROWTH;    ARIMA;    ARMA;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4968
RP-ID  :  WPS4968

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

There is an ongoing debate on whetherdisasters cause significant macroeconomic impacts and aretruly a potential impediment to economic development. Thispaper aims to assess whether and by what mechanismsdisasters have the potential to cause significant GDPimpacts. The analysis first studies the counterfactualversus the observed gross domestic product. Second, theanalysis assesses disaster impacts as a function of hazard,exposure of assets, and, importantly, vulnerability. In amedium-term analysis (up to 5 years after the disasterevent), comparing counterfactual with observed grossdomestic product, the authors find that natural disasters onaverage can lead to negative consequences. Although thenegative effects may be small, they can become morepronounced depending mainly on the size of the shock.Furthermore, the authors test a large number ofvulnerability predictors and find that greater aid andinflows of remittancesreduce adverse macroeconomicconsequences, and that direct losses appear most critical.