The Katrina Effect: Was There a Bright Side to the Evacuation of Greater New Orleans?
Abstract
In the presence of moving costs, individuals may remain in a region even when they expect to attain a higher standard of living elsewhere. When a natural disaster or other exogenous shock forces individuals to move, the net impact on living standards could be positive or negative. This paper uses longitudinal data from Current Population Surveys conducted between 2004 and 2006 to estimate the net impact of Hurricane Katrina-related evacuation on various indicators of well-being. While evacuees who have returned to the affected region show evidence of returning to normalcy in terms of labor supply and earnings, those who persisted in other locations exhibit large and persistent gaps, even relative to the poor outcomes of New Orleans-area residents prior to the storm. Evacuee outcomes show few if any relationships with host community characteristics, including unemployment and growth rates. The impact of evacuation on total income was blunted to some extent by government transfer payments and by self-employment activities. Overall, there is little evidence to support the notion that poor underemployed residents of the New Orleans area were disadvantaged by their location in a relatively depressed region.Download Info
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13022.Length:
Date of creation: Apr 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13022
Note: ED LS
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Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Jacob L. Vigdor, 2007. "The Katrina Effect: Was There a Bright Side to the Evacuation of Greater New Orleans?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 64.
- I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
- J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2007-04-14 (All new papers)
- NEP-URE-2007-04-14 (Urban & Real Estate Economics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Bauer, Thomas K. & Braun, Sebastian & Kvasnicka, Michael, 2011.
"The Economic Integration of Forced Migrants: Evidence for Post-War Germany,"
IZA Discussion Papers
5855, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Thomas Bauer & Sebastian Braun & Michael Kvasnicka, 2011. "The Economic Integration of Forced Migrants. Evidence for Post-War Germany," Kiel Working Papers 1719, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
- Thomas Bauer & Sebastian Braun & Michael Kvasnicka, 2012. "The Economic Integration of Forced Migrants: Evidence for Post-War Germany," CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1230, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London.
- Thomas K. Bauer & Sebastian Braun & Michael Kvasnicka, 2011. "The Economic Integration of Forced Migrants – Evidence for Post-War Germany," Ruhr Economic Papers 0267, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
- Bruce Sacerdote, 2008. "When The Saints Come Marching In: Effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on Student Evacuees," NBER Working Papers 14385, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Jacob Vigdor, 2008. "The Economic Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 135-54, Fall.
- Giorgio Di Pietro & Toni Mora, 2011. "The effect of the l’Aquila earthquake on labour market outcomes," Working Papers 2011/41, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
- Jeffrey A. Groen & Anne E. Polivka, 2008. "The Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Labor Market Outcomes of Evacuees," Working Papers 415, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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