IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecinqu/v46y2008i2p214-226.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Natural Disasters As Creative Destruction? Evidence From Developing Countries

Author

Listed:
  • JESÚS CRESPO CUARESMA
  • JAROSLAVA HLOUSKOVA
  • MICHAEL OBERSTEINER

Abstract

Recent studies found a robust positive correlation between the frequency of natural disasters and the long‐run economic growth after conditioning for other determinants. This result is interpreted as evidence that disasters provide opportunities to update the capital stock and adopt new technologies, thus acting as some type of Schumpeterian creative destruction. The results of cross‐country and panel data regressions indicate that the degree of catastrophic risk tends to have a negative effect on the volume of knowledge spillovers between industrialized and developing countries. Only countries with relatively high levels of development benefit from capital upgrading through trade after a natural catastrophe. (JEL O13, O30, F18)

Suggested Citation

  • Jesús Crespo Cuaresma & Jaroslava Hlouskova & Michael Obersteiner, 2008. "Natural Disasters As Creative Destruction? Evidence From Developing Countries," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(2), pages 214-226, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:46:y:2008:i:2:p:214-226
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1465-7295.2007.00063.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2007.00063.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2007.00063.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Vally Koubi, 2005. "War and Economic Performance," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 42(1), pages 67-82, January.
    3. Keller, Wolfgang, 1998. "Are international R&D spillovers trade-related?: Analyzing spillovers among randomly matched trade partners," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(8), pages 1469-1481, September.
    4. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    5. Mark Skidmore & Hideki Toya, 2002. "Do Natural Disasters Promote Long-Run Growth?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 664-687, October.
    6. Greenaway, David & Foster, Neil, 2002. "North-South Trade, Knowledge Spillovers and Growth," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 17, pages 650-670.
    7. Skidmore, Mark, 2001. "Risk, natural disasters, and household savings in a life cycle model," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 15-34, January.
    8. Edward C. Prescott & Stephen L. Parente, 1999. "Monopoly Rights: A Barrier to Riches," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1216-1233, December.
    9. Parente, Stephen L & Prescott, Edward C, 1994. "Barriers to Technology Adoption and Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(2), pages 298-321, April.
    10. Wolfgang Keller, 2004. "International Technology Diffusion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 752-782, September.
    11. Albala-Bertrand, J. M., 1993. "Natural disaster situations and growth: A macroeconomic model for sudden disaster impacts," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 21(9), pages 1417-1434, September.
    12. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 1996. "Measuring Technology Diffusion and the International Sources of Growth," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 401-410, Fall.
    13. Albala-Bertrand, J. M., 1993. "Political Economy of Large Natural Disasters: With Special Reference to Developing Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198287650.
    14. Jarko Fidrmuc, 2004. "The core and periphery of the world economy," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 89-106.
    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. López-Pueyo, Carmen & Barcenilla-Visús, Sara & Sanaú, Jaime, 2008. "International R&D spillovers and manufacturing productivity: A panel data analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 152-172, June.
    2. Jesus Crespo Cuaresma, 2010. "Natural Disasters and Human Capital Accumulation," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 24(2), pages 280-302, July.
    3. Pozzolo, Alberto Franco, 2004. "Endogenous Growth in Open Economies - A Survey of Major Results," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp04020, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    4. Jim Rose & Wayne Stevens, 2004. "Global Connectedness and Bilateral Economic Linkages - Which Countries?," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/09, New Zealand Treasury.
    5. Gehringer, Agnieszka, 2016. "Knowledge externalities and sectoral interdependences: Evidence from an open economy perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 240-249.
    6. Lai, Mingyong & Peng, Shuijun & BAO, Qun, 2006. "Technology spillovers, absorptive capacity and economic growth," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 300-320.
    7. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    8. Konstantinos Dellis, 2020. "Knowledge Diffusion and Financial Development Thresholds," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 154, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    9. Neil Foster-McGregor, 2012. "Innovation and Technology Transfer across Countries," wiiw Research Reports 380, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    10. Klenow, Peter J. & Rodriguez-Clare, Andres, 2005. "Externalities and Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 817-861, Elsevier.
    11. Schiffbauer, Marc, 2006. "Theoretical and methodological study on the role of public policies in fostering innovation and growth," Papers DYNREG04, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    12. Tuna Dinç, 2012. "The Two Sector Model of Learning-By Doing and Productivity Differences," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 59(5), pages 583-598, December.
    13. Cameron, Gavin & Proudman, James & Redding, Stephen, 2005. "Technological convergence, R&D, trade and productivity growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 775-807, April.
    14. Dellis, Konstantinos, 2020. "Knowledge diffusion and financial development thresholds," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107882, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Sang-Yong Tom Lee & Xiao Jia Guo, 2004. "Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Spillover: A Panel Analysis," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 722, Econometric Society.
    16. Goñi, Edwin & Maloney, William F., 2017. "Why don’t poor countries do R&D? Varying rates of factor returns across the development process," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 126-147.
    17. Jorge Crespo & Carmela Martín & Francisco J. Velázquez, 2004. "International technology spillovers from trade: the importance of the technological gap," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 28(3), pages 515-533, September.
    18. Raquel Ortega-Argilés, 2013. "R&D, knowledge, economic growth and the transatlantic productivity gap," Chapters, in: Frank Giarratani & Geoffrey J.D. Hewings & Philip McCann (ed.), Handbook of Industry Studies and Economic Geography, chapter 11, pages 271-302, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Kevin Luo & Tomoko Kinugasa, 2018. "Do natural disasters influence long-term saving?: Assessing the impact of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake on household saving rates using synthetic control," Discussion Papers 1804, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    20. Bretschger, Lucas & Lechthaler, Filippo & Rausch, Sebastian & Zhang, Lin, 2017. "Knowledge diffusion, endogenous growth, and the costs of global climate policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 47-72.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment

    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:bla:ecinqu:v:46:y:2008:i:2:p:214-226. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.