IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/1446.html

Delving into the eye of the cyclone to quantify the cascading impacts of natural disasters on life satisfaction

Author

Listed:
  • Ha Trong Nguyen
  • Mitrou, Francis

Abstract

The catastrophic effects of natural disasters on social and economic systems are well-documented; however, their impacts on individual life satisfaction remain insufficiently understood. This study pioneers a causal analysis of cyclones' impacts on Australians' life satisfaction, using local cyclones as natural experiments. Analysing over two decades of data, individual fixed-effects models reveal that cyclones, particularly category 5 (highest severity) cyclones in close proximity to residences, significantly reduce overall life satisfaction and specific domains like community, personal safety, and health satisfaction. Notably, these cyclones have a lasting impact on community and personal safety satisfaction. Our findings withstand rigorous sensitivity assessments, including a falsification test demonstrating no impact of future cyclones on current life satisfaction. Moreover, extensive heterogeneous analysis uncovers significant variations in cyclone impact based on life satisfaction domains and individual, household, and regional characteristics. Additionally, this study shows that cyclone-induced home damage, especially from the most severe cyclones, significantly diminishes the aforementioned life satisfaction outcomes, but to a much greater magnitude.

Suggested Citation

  • Ha Trong Nguyen & Mitrou, Francis, 2024. "Delving into the eye of the cyclone to quantify the cascading impacts of natural disasters on life satisfaction," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1446, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1446
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/298790/1/GLO-DP-1446.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    2. Luechinger, Simon & Raschky, Paul A., 2009. "Valuing flood disasters using the life satisfaction approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 620-633, April.
    3. Zhang, Xin & Zhang, Xiaobo & Chen, Xi, 2017. "Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect mental health and subjective well-being?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 81-94.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nguyen, Ha Trong & Mitrou, Francis, 2025. "Extreme weather events, home damage, and the eroding locus of control," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    2. Nguyen, Ha Trong & Mitrou, Francis, 2025. "Natural disasters and the demand for health insurance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

    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. Belloc, Ignacio & Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto, 2025. "Extreme temperatures: Gender differences in well-being," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    2. Nguyen, Ha & Mitrou, Francis, 2024. "Delving into the eye of the cyclone to quantify the causal impacts of natural disasters on life satisfaction," MPRA Paper 125390, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2025.
    3. Yuan Zhao & Jie Feng & Xiyan Li & Ruting Huang, 2025. "Extreme Weather and Life Satisfaction: Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Strategies in China," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 1-27, June.
    4. Johnston, David W. & Önder, Yasin Kürşat & Rahman, Muhammad Habibur & Ulubaşoğlu, Mehmet A., 2021. "Evaluating wildfire exposure: Using wellbeing data to estimate and value the impacts of wildfire," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 782-798.
    5. Benedikt Janzen, 2022. "Temperature and Mental Health: Evidence from Helpline Calls," Papers 2207.04992, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    6. Li, Xue & Smyth, Russell & Yao, Yao, 2023. "Extreme temperatures and out-of-pocket medical expenditure: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Zhengtao Li & Bin Hu, 2025. "Temperature Effects on People’s Subjective Well-Being and Their Subjective Adaptation: Empirical Evidence from China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 177(3), pages 1081-1112, April.
    8. Aatishya Mohanty & Nattavudh Powdthavee & Cheng Keat Tang & Andrew J. Oswald, 2024. "Temperature Variability and Natural Disasters," Papers 2409.14936, arXiv.org.
    9. Rui Zhang & Yunzhi Zhang & Zhe Dai, 2022. "Impact of Natural Disasters on Mental Health: A Cross-Sectional Study Based on the 2014 China Family Panel Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-17, February.
    10. Stephan Dietrich & Stafford Nichols, 2025. "More than a feeling: A global economic valuation of subjective wellbeing damages resulting from rising temperatures," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(2), pages 1-22, February.
    11. Ampofo, Akwasi & Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Baako, Kingsley & Kavaarpuo, Godwin, 2025. "Burning the Australian dream: Temperature shocks and homeownership in Australia," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    12. Susana Ferreira, 2024. "Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change: Economic Impacts and Adaptation Policies," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 16(1), pages 207-231, October.
    13. Nguyen, Hung T. & Pham, Mia Hang, 2021. "Air pollution and behavioral biases: Evidence from stock market anomalies," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    14. Sanduijav, Chimedregzen & Ferreira, Susana & Filipski, Mateusz & Hashida, Yukiko, 2021. "Air pollution and happiness: Evidence from the coldest capital in the world," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    15. Zhao, Yu & Yang, Yichen & Zhang, Ning, 2026. "Flood shocks, heterogeneous risk exposure, and housing market dynamics in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    16. Joaquín Bernal-Ramírez & Jair Ojeda-Joya & Camila Agudelo-Rivera & Felipe Clavijo-Ramírez & Carolina Durana-Ángel & Clark Granger-Castaño & Daniel Osorio-Rodríguez & Daniel Parra-Amado & José Pulido &, 2022. "Impacto macroeconómico del cambio climático en Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, issue 102, pages 1-62, July.
    17. Cécile Couharde & Rémi Generoso, 2015. "Hydro-climatic thresholds and economic growth reversals in developing countries: an empirical investigation," EconomiX Working Papers 2015-26, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    18. Mérel, Pierre & Paroissien, Emmanuel & Gammans, Matthew, 2024. "Sufficient statistics for climate change counterfactuals," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    19. Foliano, Francesca & Tonei, Valentina & Sevilla, Almudena, 2024. "Social restrictions, leisure and well-being," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    20. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell & Trinh, Trong-Anh, 2022. "Energy poverty, temperature and climate change," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:glodps:1446. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.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.