IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/endeec/v18y2013i06p649-679_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does development reduce fatalities from natural disasters? New evidence for floods

Author

Listed:
  • Ferreira, Susana
  • Hamilton, Kirk
  • Vincent, Jeffrey R.

Abstract

We analyze the impact of development on flood fatalities using a new data set of 2,171 large floods in 92 countries between 1985 and 2008. Our results challenge the conventional wisdom that development results in fewer fatalities during natural disasters. Results indicating that higher income and better governance reduce fatalities during flood events do not hold up when unobserved country heterogeneity and within-country correlation of standard errors are taken into account. We find that income does have a significant, indirect effect on flood fatalities by affecting flood frequency and flood magnitude, but this effect is nonmonotonic, with net reductions in fatalities occurring only in lower income countries. We find little evidence that improved governance affects flood fatalities either directly or indirectly.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferreira, Susana & Hamilton, Kirk & Vincent, Jeffrey R., 2013. "Does development reduce fatalities from natural disasters? New evidence for floods," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(6), pages 649-679, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:endeec:v:18:y:2013:i:06:p:649-679_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1355770X13000387/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Richard S. J. Tol, 2022. "State capacity and vulnerability to natural disasters," Chapters, in: Mark Skidmore (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Disasters, chapter 20, pages 434-457, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Roy Chowdhury, Joyita & Parida, Yashobanta & Agarwal Goel, Prarthna, 2021. "Does inequality-adjusted human development reduce the impact of natural disasters? A gendered perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    3. Juncal Cunado & Susana Ferreira, 2014. "The Macroeconomic Impacts of Natural Disasters: The Case of Floods," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(1), pages 149-168.
    4. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "The Economic Impact of Climate in the Long Run," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anil Markandya & Dirk Rübbelke (ed.), CLIMATE AND DEVELOPMENT, chapter 1, pages 3-36, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Yashobanta Parida & Prarthna Agarwal Goel & Joyita Roy Chowdhury & Prakash Kumar Sahoo & Tapaswini Nayak, 2021. "Do economic development and disaster adaptation measures reduce the impact of natural disasters? A district-level analysis, Odisha, India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 3487-3519, March.
    6. Rituparna Kaushik & Yashobanta Parida & Ravikiran Naik, 2024. "Human development and disaster mortality: evidence from India," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    7. Qing Miao & Yu Shi & Meri Davlasheridze, 2021. "Fiscal Decentralization and Natural Disaster Mitigation: Evidence from the United States," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 26-50, March.
    8. Khurana, Ritika & Mugabe, Douglas & Etienne, Xiaoli L., 2022. "Climate change, natural disasters, and institutional integrity," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    9. Qing Miao, 2019. "Are We Adapting to Floods? Evidence from Global Flooding Fatalities," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(6), pages 1298-1313, June.
    10. Juan Robalino & Katrina Mullan & Matías Piaggio & Marisol Guzmán, 2023. "Does Green Infrastructure Work? Precipitation, Protected Areas, Floods and Landslides," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 457-482, November.
    11. Laura A. Bakkensen & Robert O. Mendelsohn, 2016. "Risk and Adaptation: Evidence from Global Hurricane Damages and Fatalities," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(3), pages 555-587.
    12. Miao, Qing & Popp, David, 2014. "Necessity as the mother of invention: Innovative responses to natural disasters," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 280-295.

    More about this item

    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:cup:endeec:v:18:y:2013:i:06:p:649-679_00. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ede .

    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.