The Political Economy of ``Natural'' Disasters

Abstract

Natural disasters occur in a political space. Although events beyond our control may trigger a disaster, the level of government preparedness and response greatly determines the extent of suffering incurred by the affected population. We use a political economy model of disaster prevention, supported by case studies, that explains why some governments prepare well for disasters and others do not. We also show how the presence of international aid distorts this choice and increases the chance that governments will under-invest. Policy suggestions that may alleviate this problem are discussed.

Government ideology and the natural disasters: a global investigation

“…Raschky (2008) indicates that governmental stability and investment climate reduce the number of victims and economic losses. Similar arguments are proposed by Cohen and Werker (2008), who argue that governments that derive utility from social welfare suffer less from severe disasters. From the literature above, it is noted that ''political institutions play a major role in policy choice and the death toll from natural disasters'' (Cavallo and Noy 2009).…”

“…We next account for possible heterogeneity in our sample. For example, Cohen and Werker (2008) argue that developing countries ''may choose to invest very low amounts in disaster prevention (p. 805).''…”

“…While the results indicate that less people are affected from natural disasters under the tenure of a right-wing government, we find no evidence that government ideology matters in protecting the general public from natural disaster death in OECD countries. 5 This is in comparison with Cohen and Werker (2008), who emphasize that rich governments like those in OECD countries care about the social welfare of citizens and thus will spend more on disaster prevention and mitigation (Keefer et al 2012). Therefore, both left-and right-wing ruling parties will set a higher policy standard for natural disaster protection, especially in reducing deaths from natural disasters.…”

Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?

“…Poor infrastructure or unsafe construction can significantly increase vulnerability to disasters, and governments often spend less on disaster prevention in areas that are politically weak or hostile (Cohen and Werker 2008). The existing literature has noted that disasters tend to disproportionately affect marginalized or disempowered groups (Albala-Bertrand 1993;Bolin 2007;Cohen and Werker 2008;Mustafa 1998).…”

A New Analytical Model for the Analysis of Economic Processes

“…It needs a work of cleaning the raw data, firstly to eliminate those components that have a cyclic explanation as purely seasonal (for example the decline of industrial production in August) or accidental (as monthly variations of production caused by the different number of days working), and then also to eliminate patterns requiring a special "ad hoc" explanation, determined by important but unique events, as the effects of war, natural disasters [8,9]. The relationship between cycle and growth is a phenomenon coexisting in the representation that the empirical data provide.…”