Do Natural Disasters Affect Human Capital? An Assessment Based on Existing Empirical Evidence

By J. Baez, Alejandro de la Fuente, I. Santos. Social Science Research Network, 2010

195 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The last few years have seen a notable increase in the number of studies investigating the causes and effects of natural disasters in many dimensions. This paper seeks to review and assess available empirical evidence on the ex-post microeconomic effects of natural disasters on the accumulation of human capital, focusing on consumption, nutrition, education and health, including mental health. Three major findings come forward from this work. First, disasters appear to bring substantial damages to human capital, including death and destruction, and produce deleterious consequences on nutrition, education, health and many income-generating processes. Furthermore, some of these detrimental effects are both large and long-lasting. Second, there is a large degree of heterogeneity in the size – but not much in the direction – of the impacts on different socioeconomic groups. Yet, an empirical regularity across natural hazards is that the poorest carry the heaviest burden of the effects of disasters across different determinants and outcomes of human capital. Finally, although the occurrence of natural hazards is mostly out of control of authorities, there still is a significant room for policy action to minimize their impacts on the accumulation of human capital. We highlight the importance of flexible safety nets as well as the double critical role of accurate and reliable information to monitor risks and vulnerabilities, and identify the impacts and responses of households once they are hit by a disaster. The paper also lays out existing knowledge gaps, particularly in regard to the need of improving our understanding of the impacts of disasters on health outcomes, the mechanisms of transmission and the persistence of the effects in the long-run.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Sociology and Political Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/549463084ae02ed57d95cc7bbe5d754e62b89680

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In General Health Professions

In Sociology and Political Science

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Citations in the corpus

Risk-Taking Behavior in the Wake of Natural Disasters (2015, unknown): “However, recent papers have examined the impact of natural disasters on outcomes such as macroeconomic output (Noy, 2009), income and international financial flows (Yang, 2008a), migration decisions (Halliday, 2006; Paxson and Rouse, 2008; Yang, 2008b), fertility and education investments (Baez et a”
Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia (2016, background): “5), that translate into less intense ground shakings from the moment they occur further away from ILFS households’ location of residence. example, Baez et al. (2010); Halliday (2006); Yang (2008).5 However, the long-term effects of natural disasters on the stocks of productive assets (including…”
Gone with the Storm: Rainfall Shocks and Household Wellbeing in Guatemala (2016, unknown): “Literature has shown that households are often forced to withdraw children from school when confronted by idiosyncratic or systemic shocks (Baez et al. 2010).”
From Poverty to Disaster and Back: a Review of the Literature (2020, background): “Such findings are not restricted to Africa; similar postdisaster impacts on health and education have been found in Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere (Baez et al. 2010; Maccini and Yang 2009) (Baez et al. 2019; Rush 2018).”