IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v21y2007i3p199-222.html

Natural Disasters, Economic Development, and Humanitarian Aid

Author

Listed:
  • David Strömberg

Abstract

Natural disasters are one of the major problems facing humankind. Between 1980 and 2004, two million people were reported killed and five billion people cumulatively affected by around 7,000 natural disasters, according to the dataset maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at University of Louvain (Belgium). The economic costs are considerable and rising. The direct economic damage from natural disasters between 1980-2004 is estimated at around $1 trillion. This paper starts by describing the incidence of natural disasters, where they strike, and their development over time. It then discusses how societal factors act to protect people from or expose them to natural hazards. The final section discusses the determinants and targets of international aid to disaster victims.

Suggested Citation

  • David Strömberg, 2007. "Natural Disasters, Economic Development, and Humanitarian Aid," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 199-222, Summer.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:21:y:2007:i:3:p:199-222
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.21.3.199
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.21.3.199
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew E. Kahn, 2005. "The Death Toll from Natural Disasters: The Role of Income, Geography, and Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 271-284, May.
    2. Isham, Jonathan & Kaufmann, Daniel & Pritchett, Lant H, 1997. "Civil Liberties, Democracy, and the Performance of Government Projects," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 11(2), pages 219-242, May.
    3. P. Peduzzi & H. Herold, 2005. "Mapping Disastrous Natural Hazards Using Global Datasets," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 35(2), pages 265-289, June.
    4. Mr. Tobias N. Rasmussen, 2004. "Macroeconomic Implications of Natural Disasters in the Caribbean," IMF Working Papers 2004/224, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Maxx Dilley & Robert S. Chen & Uwe Deichmann & Arthur L. Lerner-Lam & Margaret Arnold, 2005. "Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7376, April.
    6. Collier, Paul & Dollar, David, 2002. "Aid allocation and poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1475-1500, September.
    7. Thomas Eisensee & David Strömberg, 2007. "News Droughts, News Floods, and U. S. Disaster Relief," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 693-728.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ercio Muñoz S. & Alfredo Pistelli M., 2010. "¿Tienen los Terremotos un Impacto Inflacionario en el Corto Plazo? Evidencia para una Muestra de Países," Notas de Investigación Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 13(2), pages 113-127, April.
    2. Chongwoo Choe & Paul A. Raschky, 2011. "Media, Democracy, and Government Action: Prevention vs. Palliation in the Time of Cholera," ISER Discussion Paper 0812, Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka.
    3. María Ibarrarán & Matthias Ruth & Sanjana Ahmad & Marisa London, 2009. "Climate change and natural disasters: macroeconomic performance and distributional impacts," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 549-569, June.
    4. Luis Ballesteros & Aline Gatignon, 2019. "The relative value of firm and nonprofit experience: Tackling large‐scale social issues across institutional contexts," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 631-657, April.
    5. Choe, Chongwoo & Raschky, Paul A., 2016. "Media, institutions, and government action: Prevention vs. palliation in the time of cholera," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 75-93.
    6. Eduardo Cavallo & Ilan Noy, 2009. "The Economics of Natural Disasters: A Survey," Research Department Publications 4649, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    7. van Bergeijk, P.A.G. & Lazzaroni, S., 2013. "Macroeconomics of natural disasters," ISS Working Papers - General Series 50075, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    8. Paul Raschky, 2007. "Estimating the effects of risk transfer mechanisms against floods in Europe and U.S.A.: A dynamic panel approach," Working Papers 2007-05, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    9. Yanos Zylberberg, 2010. "Natural natural disasters and economic disruption," PSE Working Papers halshs-00564946, HAL.
    10. Juergen Bitzer & Erkan Goeren, 2018. "Foreign Aid and Subnational Development: A Grid Cell Analysis," Working Papers V-407-18, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2018.
    11. Yamamura, Eiji, 2011. "Effect of free media on views regarding the safety of nuclear energy after the 2011 disasters in Japan: evidence using cross-country data," MPRA Paper 32011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Prema-chandra Athukorala, 2012. "Disaster, Generosity and Recovery: Indian Ocean Tsunami," Departmental Working Papers 2012-04, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    13. Yamamura, Eiji, 2011. "How does corruption influence perceptions of the risk of nuclear accidents?: cross-country analysis after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan," MPRA Paper 31708, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Yong SHI, 2018. "Assessment of Agricultural Vulnerability to Floods in Shanghai by the DEA Method," Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies (CJUES), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 1-11, March.
    15. Tam Bang Vu & Calvin Luscombe & Shaun McKim, 2014. "Natural Disasters in Japan and Tourism in Developing Countries: The Case of the Pacific Islands," Journal of Empirical Economics, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 3(2), pages 98-107.
    16. Matthew A. COLE & Robert J R ELLIOTT & Toshihiro OKUBO & Eric STROBL, 2013. "Natural Disasters and Plant Survival: The impact of the Kobe earthquake," Discussion papers 13063, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    17. Nadia Benali & Mounir Ben Mbarek & Rochdi Feki, 2019. "Natural Disaster, Government Revenues and Expenditures: Evidence from High and Middle-Income Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(2), pages 695-710, June.
    18. Hicks, Robert L. & Parks, Bradley C. & Tierney, Michael J., 2005. "Explaining the Allocation of Bilateral and Multilateral Environmental Aid to Developing Countries," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19346, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Yahyaoui, Ismahene & Hamdaoui, Mekki & Bouchoucha, Najeh, 2019. "Official development aid effectiveness and economic growth in African countries: The role of the governance," MPRA Paper 95410, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Guoqiang Shen & Long Zhou & Yao Wu & Zhiming Cai, 2018. "A Global Expected Risk Analysis of Fatalities, Injuries, and Damages by Natural Disasters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:21:y:2007:i:3:p:199-222. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.