Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy

Healy, Andrew; Malhotra, Neil

doi:10.1017/s0003055409990104

Cited by 660 publications

(486 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Although constituents can punish failed emergency responses, such policies should ameliorate the consequences of natural disasters and reduce the risk of removal from office compared to non-democratic regimes. Our theoretical approach is therefore closer to Flores and Smith (2013) than Healy and Malhotra (2009). Consequently, we test the following hypotheses:…”

Section: Climate Impacts Political Regime and Leader Survivalmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…On the other hand, voters also reward competent handling of crises in the aftermath of natural disasters (Bechtel and Hainmueller 2011). This creates incentives for democratic leaders to reduce, not increase, disaster preparedness (Healy and Malhotra 2009). Taken together, these findings suggest that natural disasters may constitute a political opportunity for skilled democratic leaders, but constituents will punish a lack of preparation or failed emergency response.…”

Section: Climate Impacts Political Regime and Leader Survivalmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…There is evidence that democratic leaders reap political rewards if they show competence in managing the aftermath of disaster and ensure swift compensation for damages (Bechtel and Hainmueller 2011;Healy and Malhotra 2009). In contrast to Flores and Smith (2013), Healy and Malhotra (2009) conclude that this political benefit leads to a reduction-rather than an increase-in disaster preparedness in democracies.…”

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confidence: 98%

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Climate Impacts, Political Institutions, and Leader Survival: Effects of Droughts and Flooding Precipitation

et al. 2018

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We explore how the political survival of leaders in different political regimes is affected by drought and flooding precipitation, which are the two major anticipated impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Using georeferenced climate data for the entire world and the Archigos dataset for the period of 1950-2010, we find that irregular political exits, such as coups or revolutions, are not significantly affected by climate impacts. Similarly, drought has a positive but insignificant effect on all types of political exits. On the other hand, we find that floods increase political turnover through the regular means such as elections or term limits. Democracies are better able to withstand the pressures arising from the economic and social disruptions associated with high precipitation than other institutional arrangements. Our results further suggest that, in the context of floods, political institutions play a more important role than economic development for the leaders' political survival.

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Section: Climate Impacts Political Regime and Leader Survivalmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Climate Impacts Political Regime and Leader Survivalmentioning

confidence: 97%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

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Climate Impacts, Political Institutions, and Leader Survival: Effects of Droughts and Flooding Precipitation

et al. 2018

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“…For instance, Healy and Malhotra (2009) analyze US 1984 to 2004 county-level data to examine the impact of spending on prevention versus disaster relief on election outcomes. They find that preparedness spending is effective: a 1 % increase in preparedness spending is associated with a 0.134 % reduction in disaster damage, whereas relief spending has no impact on future damage.…”

Section: Why Resilience Differs Across Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The structure of disaster resilience: a framework for simulations and policy recommendations

Edwards

2015

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In this era of rapid climate change there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary collaboration and understanding in the study of what determines resistance to disasters and recovery speed. This paper is an economist's contribution to that effort. It traces the entrance of the word "resilience" from ecology into the social science literature on disasters, provides a formal economic definition of resilience that can be used in mathematical modeling, incorporates this definition into a multilevel model that suggests appropriate policy roles and targets at each level, and draws on the recent empirical literature on the economics of disaster, searching for policy handles that can stimulate higher resilience. On the whole it provides a framework for simulations and for formulating disaster resilience policies. The structure of disaster resilienceResilience is a term with many connotations and definitions in the disaster literature. This paper integrates the components of resistance to and recovery from disaster into a model of resilience. The paper begins by defining resilience formally and introducing a mathematical form for resilience. I then introduce the notion of interdependent resilience layers and place the mathematical form into this layered structure. I identify important evidence in the empirical economic literature that a layered response structure exists. The empirical literature also reveals influence points where outside intervention can improve resilience. I conclude by using some of this empirical evidence to illustrate how the multilayer model would work in the context of financial resistance to and recovery from disaster.The paper is organized in the following manner. Section 1 lays out the intellectual roots of resilience by tracing the migration of its meaning through material science and ecology and by explaining why and how this meaning must be further modified to adequately describe human systems. The first finding is that resilience is a new idea, not just a new word. I demonstrate how it can be defined narrowly enough and with enough technical precision to make it a useful tool for theoretical and empirical studies of disasters.Section 2 develops a formal definition of resilience and sets it within an economic context. The second finding is that resilience is best viewed as a structural characteristic of a multilayered, hierarchical system. Resilience "layers" include individual people and sets of people organized into families, local organizations, businesses, local governments, national governments, and international organizations. All layers have not only their own native resilience capacities but also variable abilities to draw on resources from higher levels in the system. This idea of hierarchically layered resilience is developed into a mathematical framework that can be used for empirical estimation and mathematical simulations. In order to appeal to a wide, multidisciplinary audience, the more substantive technical developments are laid out in separate sections that can be ...

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“…The general finding is that increases in education, trade openness, financial sector strength, coupled with better institutions and stable democratic regimes help reduce the impact of disasters. A few papers have also explored the link between political accountability and damages from natural disasters (Besley and Burgess, 2002;Eisensee andStromberg, 2007 andHealy andMalhotra, 2009) finding that greater accountability tends to lower damages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development, Climate Change Adaptation, and Maladaptation: Some Econometric Evidence

Bosello

Dasgupta

2015

SSRN Journal

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ABSTRACT. This paper examines the determinants of climate related disasters and attempts to estimate the presence of adaptive capacity in terms of per capita income and population density elasticities. We find evidence of adaptive capacity in a "weak" form both in terms of income and population density elasticities over our entire sample. That is, damages are in fact increasing with income and population, but less than proportionally. There is also evidence of countries improving their adaptive capacity over the long run, but of maladaptation occurring in the short run. Repeating the analysis splitting the sample by per-capita income levels, we find that higher income countries show adaptive capacity in a "strong form", i.e. damages decrease with GDP, while lower income countries highlight exactly the opposite behavior. Finally, using Granger causality tests for panel data, we find evidence of increase in GDP per capita Granger causing climate related damages for lower income countries, but not in higher income countries.JEL codes: C19, Q54, Q56

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Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy

Cited by 660 publications

References 60 publications

Climate Impacts, Political Institutions, and Leader Survival: Effects of Droughts and Flooding Precipitation

Climate Impacts, Political Institutions, and Leader Survival: Effects of Droughts and Flooding Precipitation

The structure of disaster resilience: a framework for simulations and policy recommendations

Development, Climate Change Adaptation, and Maladaptation: Some Econometric Evidence

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