Government ideology and the natural disasters: a global investigation

This article examines whether natural disaster losses vary under the tenure of a government with a different ideology. Using panel data for 123 countries over the period of 1975–2013, we find that right-wing governments experience fewer natural disaster losses (measured by people’s deaths, those affected, and economic damages) in the case of the full sample. We hence account for possible heterogeneity in our sample and re-estimate the empirical model between 30 OECD countries and 93 non-OECD countries. In summary, we again discover that right-wing governments suffer less natural disaster damages in non-OECD countries, but this effect is statistically insignificant at conventional levels in OECD countries. We believe that the results herein have important implications for the policies of disaster prevention. In addition, voters will be able to choose a responsible government via the voting booth in accordance with our findings. Overall, our results suggest that a more partisan ideology could more precisely capture policy attitudes, especially in developing countries. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015