Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/245877 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-1257
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
This paper estimates the impact of catastrophic natural disasters on economic growth using an event study methodology on a country panel dataset from 1970 to 2019. The severity of the events is determined by the associated mortality. We find that affected economies-which, given the way natural disasters are ranked, comprise mainly developing countries-suffer an average loss between 2.1 and 3.7 percentage points (p.p.). The estimated loss is not offset by above-average growth rates in the disaster's aftermath. In contrast, when the severity of the events is determined by physical intensity rather than by mortality-which implies a more balanced estimating sample of developed and developing economies-the estimated effects on growth are negligible. Thus, the negative impacts of natural disasters on economic growth are larger for poorer countries, suggesting that the impact of natural disasters on growth is an economic development issue.
Subjects: 
Natural disasters
Economic growth
Event study
JEL: 
Q54
O47
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.