Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/104432 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Munich Discussion Paper No. 2014-25
Publisher: 
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät, München
Abstract: 
This paper assesses the long-run toll taken by a large-scale technological disaster on welfare, well-being and mental health. We estimate the causal effect of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe after 20 years by linking geographic variation in radioactive fallout to respondents of a nationally representative survey in Ukraine according to their place of residence in 1986. The psychological effects of this nuclear disaster are large and persistent. More affected individuals exhibit poorer subjective well-being, higher depression rates and lower subjective survival probabilities; they rely more on governmental transfers as source of subsistence. We estimate the aggregate annual welfare loss at 6–8% of Ukraine’s GDP highlighting previously ignored externalities of large-scale catastrophes.
Subjects: 
Chernobyl
nuclear catastrophe
externality
subjective well-being
mental health
depression
transfer dependency
welfare loss
natural experiment
JEL: 
I31
I18
D62
Q51
H12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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