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The study uses commune fixed-effect regressions to estimate the effect of natural disasters on household welfare and poverty, and subsequently examines household and community characteristics that can strengthen resilience of households to natural disasters. We find that all the three disaster types considered in this study including storms, floods and droughts have negative effects on household income and expenditure. Access to micro-credit, internal remittances and social allowances can help households strengthen the resilience to natural disasters. Households in communes with higher expenditure mean and more equal expenditure distribution are more resilient to natural disasters.

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Disability is significantly correlated with poverty in Vietnam, according to data from the 2006 Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey, especially when the extra costs of living with a disability are taken into account. This disability-poverty link is also associated with lower educational attainment, an important factor in determining poverty and productive economic activity in general, both for household-based businesses and wage employment. Not taking into account these associations and the extra costs of disability will make some poor disabled people invisible in poverty statistics and impede efforts to reduce poverty. JEL codes: I12, I31, O15

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