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Keerthiratne, Wendala Gamaralalage Subhani Sulochana.pdf (1.67 MB)

Economic impact of natural disasters

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posted on 2023-06-09, 08:10 authored by Wendala Gamaralalage Subhani Sulochana Keerthiratne
This thesis which consists of three empirical papers examines the economic impact of natural disasters. The first paper estimates the impact of natural disasters on financial development proxied by private credit. Employing a panel fixed effects estimator on a country-level panel data set covering 147 countries for the period from 1979 to 2011, it finds that companies and households get deeper into debt after a natural disaster in the short run. This effect is stronger in poorer countries whilst the effect is weaker in countries where agriculture is more important. In the long run, capital markets appear to improve. Findings are robust to alternative estimators, specifications, samples and data. The second paper explores the impact of natural disasters on the concentration of charitable receipts, again using country-level panel data. This analysis uses disaster indices purely based on physical intensities of natural disasters, thus overcome common issue of endogeneity in disaster data. In the short run, disasters expand the number of categories under which countries receive foreign aid and reduce the dependence on a single donor. Disasters reduce the concentration of the aid portfolio of recipient countries as measured by Herfindahl-Hirschman index. Findings are robust across alternative estimators. The study presents evidence of long term effects, too. The third paper studies the relationship between natural disasters and income inequality in Sri Lanka as the first study of this nature for the country. It constructs regional inequality indices from micro data for Sri Lanka. Natural disasters do not affect expenditure inequality, but reduce income inequality. Natural disasters decrease non-seasonal agricultural and non-agricultural income inequality but increase seasonal agricultural income inequality. Income of richer households is mainly derived from non-agricultural sources such as manufacturing and business activities and non-seasonal agricultural activities. Poorer households have a comparatively higher share of seasonal agricultural income.

History

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  • Published version

Pages

158.0

Department affiliated with

  • Economics Theses

Qualification level

  • doctoral

Qualification name

  • phd

Language

  • eng

Institution

University of Sussex

Full text available

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-10-03

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