No abstract

A major natural disaster can generate changes in the affected population’s behavior. As Chile is considered one of the countries with the highest seismic activity and has experienced several of the most intense earthquakes on record in the world, this work seeks to identify behavioral changes in the birth rate within an affected population related to a natural disaster in Chile. Based on evidence from the 2010 Chilean earthquake, an empirical study was carried out drawing on birth rate data and social data associated with earthquakes in Chile between 2004 and 2015. Two models were estimated. The first model is a difference-in-differences model for determining the effect of the disaster on the birth rate in the affected area in the post-disaster period. The second model is a triple-difference model that includes the trend of the data over time. The results indicate a positive relationship between the variation in the birth rate and the occurrence of the natural disaster. Studying the relationship between disaster events and fertility contributes to understanding the phenomena of social dynamics. This knowledge could improve public policy decision making for better planning in the face of a natural disaster.

Environmental problems have been increasing at a disproportionate rate, contributing to global warming, one of humanity's greatest challenges. As stated in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 'climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying' and there is certainty that this is a result of human activity. In this context, environmental social responsibility is fundamental to prevent, mitigate or repair the environmental damage generated by productive activity. This obliges us to take concrete actions and thus move from a linear economy approach to a circular economy approach that allows for sustainable development, where waste and pollution are eliminated from the design stage and materials are used for as long as possible. Chile must implement actions that allow it to meet the commitments obtained in its Nationally Determined Contribution of 2020, and move towards sustainable development. The Chilean case is interesting to study because it is a highly exposed and fragile country in the face of climate change. The purpose of this publication is to highlight the current problem of climate change and the threat it poses to our planet, to understand that the circular economy approach as a business model allows for a long-term solution to this problem, to understand the consequences of climate change in Chile and to know the current situation in terms of strategic planning at the country level in relation to the circular economy.

Air pollution, which generates negative effects on people's health, is linked to 23% of deaths worldwide. Among the main air pollutants are particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), which causes cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, affecting the whole community living in a sector exposed to emissions; and sulphur dioxide (SO2), which can cause severe effects even with short exposures. Based on air pollution data obtained from National Air Quality Information System (SINCA) monitoring stations, meteorological information from the Meteorological Directorate of Chile, and socioeconomic information on income poverty level, multidimensional poverty level, unemployment, schooling, overcrowding and health, we constructed a data panel containing daily information at the community level, from 2016 to 2019. Using three ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models, we studied the relationship between socioeconomic variables and each of the pollutants. Our results show that, in general, there is a positive and significant relationship between the level of multidimensional poverty of a population and the totality of regional pollution levels; as well as a negative and significant relationship between unemployment and the different pollution levels. Finally, there is a negative and significant relationship between the level of citizen's education and pollution. The main objective of this study was to investigate the possible relationships between socio-economic variables and pollution, in order to generate evidence to aid implementation of environmental public policies.

Motivated by the fact that Chile is one of the most seismically active countries in the world (located over the 'Pacific Ring of Fire'), we define a methodology for estimating the cost of housing reconstruction by modelling the occurrence of natural disasters as a Markov chain. Specifically, the states of the chain correspond to the different possible conditions of the housing infrastructure and the transition probabilities represent the possibility of change from one condition to another once the disaster has occurred. We prove that for the case of the 2010 Chilean earthquake, the matrix representing the process admits a stationary state vector. Using this vector, which we interpreted as the portion of time that the chain spends in each state in the long term, we define a cost function associated with total reconstruction. If this cost function is continuous, then this methodology allows policymakers to make decisions when facing the trade-off between current partial reconstruction and future total reconstruction.