IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jriskr/v12y2009i2p121-136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Total cost of fire in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Ashe
  • K. J. McAneney
  • A. J. Pitman

Abstract

Fire, an ever present hazard in Australia, causes approximately 100 fatalities and over 3000 injuries per annum. Significant resources are allocated to mitigate the risk. In this study, we estimate the total cost of fire in Australia for 2005 at AUD$12,000 million or 1.3% of GDP. Comparable studies in the UK, USA, Canada, Denmark and New Zealand are reviewed and show that the cost in these countries ranges between 0.8 and 2% of GDP. Breaking the Australian total down into its component parts, we find that 57% relates to costs in anticipation of fire, 29% for response activities and that the remaining 14% results from the consequences of fire. This estimate shows that the investment in mitigation (86% of the total costs) is over five times the consequences (14%) and raises questions as to whether the current system adopted in Australia is economically efficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Ashe & K. J. McAneney & A. J. Pitman, 2009. "Total cost of fire in Australia," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 121-136, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:12:y:2009:i:2:p:121-136
    DOI: 10.1080/13669870802648528
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669870802648528
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13669870802648528?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brand, Sam & Price, Richard, 2000. "The economic and social costs of crime," MPRA Paper 74968, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jason J. Sharples & Geoffrey J. Cary & Paul Fox-Hughes & Scott Mooney & Jason P. Evans & Michael-Shawn Fletcher & Mike Fromm & Pauline F. Grierson & Rick McRae & Patrick Baker, 2016. "Natural hazards in Australia: extreme bushfire," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 85-99, November.
    2. Oliveira, A.S. & Soares-Filho, B.S. & Oliveira, U. & Van der Hoff, R. & Carvalho-Ribeiro, S.M. & Oliveira, A.R. & Scheepers, L.C. & Vargas, B.A. & Rajão, R.G., 2021. "Costs and effectiveness of public and private fire management programs in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    3. Kerianne Lawson, 2022. "Electricity outages and residential fires: Evidence from Cape Town, South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 90(4), pages 469-485, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giacomo Di Gennaro & Antonio La Spina, 2016. "The costs of illegality: a research programme," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 1-20, January.
    2. Stephen Machin & Olivier Marie, 2011. "Crime And Police Resources: The Street Crime Initiative," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 678-701, August.
    3. Pradiptyo, Rimawan, 2012. "Does Corruption Pay in Indonesia? If So, Who are Benefited the Most?," MPRA Paper 41384, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Stephen Machin & Olivier Marie, 2006. "Crime and benefit sanctions," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 5(2), pages 149-165, August.
    5. Timothy Besley & Hannes Mueller, 2018. "Predation, Protection, and Productivity: A Firm-Level Perspective," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 184-221, April.
    6. Paolo Buonanno & Daniel Montolio & Josep Raya-Vílchez, 2013. "Housing prices and crime perception," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 305-321, August.
    7. Sijbren Cnossen, 2006. "Alcohol Taxation and Regulation in the European Union," CESifo Working Paper Series 1821, CESifo.
    8. Steve Gibbons, 2004. "The Costs of Urban Property Crime," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(499), pages 441-463, November.
    9. Wickramasekera, Nyantara & Wright, Judy & Elsey, Helen & Murray, Jenni & Tubeuf, Sandy, 2015. "Cost of crime: A systematic review," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 218-228.
    10. Ms. Concha Verdugo Yepes & Mr. Peter L. Pedroni & Xingwei Hu, 2015. "Crime and the Economy in Mexican States: Heterogeneous Panel Estimates (1993-2012)," IMF Working Papers 2015/121, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Francesconi, Marco & James, Jonathan, 2015. "The Cost of Binge Drinking," IZA Discussion Papers 8849, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Malvina Bondy & Sefi Roth & Lutz Sager, 2020. "Crime Is in the Air: The Contemporaneous Relationship between Air Pollution and Crime," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(3), pages 555-585.
    13. Adriana Villamarin Garcia, 2011. "Prevenir y calcular una estimacion de los costos de la violencia homicida en Colombia," Documentos de CERAC 9108, CERAC -Centro de Recursos para el Análisis de Conflictos.
    14. Bowles Roger, 2015. "Sentencing Discounts, Attorney Compensation and Plea Bargaining in Criminal Cases," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 385-407, November.
    15. Alvarez, Fernando & Argente, David & Jimenez, Rafael & Lippi, Francesco, 2022. "Cash: A Blessing or a curse?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 85-128.
    16. Woei-Chyuan Wong & Adilah Azhari & Nur Adiana Hiau Abdullah & Chee Yin Yip, 2019. "Estimating the impact of crime risk on housing prices in Malaysia," International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 13(5), pages 769-789, November.
    17. Alan Brennan & Petra Meier & Robin Purshouse & Rachid Rafia & Yang Meng & Daniel Hill-Macmanus, 2016. "Developing policy analytics for public health strategy and decisions—the Sheffield alcohol policy model framework," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 236(1), pages 149-176, January.
    18. Pudney, Stephen & Bryan, Mark & DelBono, Emilia, 2013. "Licensing and regulation of the cannabis market in England and Wales: Towards a cost-benefit analysis," MPRA Paper 50365, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Roger Bowles & Chrisostomos Florackis, 2012. "Impatience, reputation and offending," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(2), pages 177-187, January.
    20. Rangel González Erick & Torre Cepeda Leonardo E., 2014. "Determinants of the Cost of Starting a Business in Mexico," Working Papers 2014-25, Banco de México.

    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:taf:jriskr:v:12:y:2009:i:2:p:121-136. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJRR20 .

    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.