The Political Economy of FEMA Disaster Payments
By T. Garrett, R. Sobel. 2002
456 citations recorded by the source corpus.
We find that presidential and congressional influences affect the rate of disaster declaration and the allocation of FEMA disaster expenditures across states. States politically important to the president have a higher rate of disaster declaration by the president, and disaster expenditures are higher in states having congressional representation on FEMA oversight committees. Election year impacts are also found. Our models predict that nearly half of all disaster relief is motivated politically rather than by need. The findings reject a purely altruistic model of FEMA assistance and question the relative effectiveness of government versus private disaster relief.
Subfields: Sociology and Political Science, Soil Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/53dfb6572fcca67b6fd8ab78ecbec3fff58138bc
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Sociology and Political Science
- C. Register
- Monica P. Escaleras
- Nejat Anbarcı
- Reimund Schwarze
- M. Busse
- W. Shughart
- Steffen Gröning
- Paul A. Raschky
In Soil Science
- Simon Luechinger
- Reimund Schwarze
- C. Register
- Monica P. Escaleras
- Nejat Anbarcı
- W. Shughart
- Paul A. Raschky
Citations in the corpus
- The resource curse revisited: governance and natural resources (2011, background): “It deals with fund allocations as a result of natural disasters and is spearheaded by Garrett and Sobel (2003) and Escaleras et al. (2007).”
- Public sector corruption and major earthquakes: A potentially deadly interaction (2007, background): “Finally and most closely related to the current paper, Garrett and Sobel (2003) offer evidence that both a president's declaration of a disaster area and the flow of Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) money to such areas are highly correlated with the political importance of a partic”
- Katrinanomics: The politics and economics of disaster relief (2006, background): “Evidence that the allocation of federal disaster relief funds follows similar political imperatives has been adduced by Garrett and Sobel (2003). Also see Krueger (2005).”
- Charity hazard—A real hazard to natural disaster insurance? (2007, unknown): “An econometric analysis by Garrett and Sobel (2003) finds that FEMA disaster expenditure is significantly higher in election years (around $140 million as compared to nonelection years).”
- Uncertainty of Governmental Relief and the Crowding out of Flood Insurance (2013, background): “Lewis & Nickerson (1989) and Kaplow (1991) were among the first translating the idea that people underinsure, because of expected governmental assistance into a formal model.”