Natural Disasters and Regional Development - The Case of Earthquakes

Marius Fabian, Christian Lessmann and Tim Sofke

No 7511, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We analyze the impact of earthquakes on nighttime lights at a sub-national level, i.e. on grids of different size. We argue that existing studies on the impact of natural disasters on economic development have several important limitations, both at the level of the outcome variable – usually national income or growth – as well as on the level of the independent variable, e.g. the timing of an event and the measuring of its intensity. We aim to overcome these limitations by using geophysical event data on earthquakes together with satellite nighttime lights. Using panel fixed effects regressions covering the entire world for the period 1992-2013 we find that earthquakes reduce both light growth rates and light levels significantly. The effects are persistent for approximately 5 years, but we find no long run effects. The effects are strong and robust in a small grid and gets weaker the larger the unit of observation. National institutions and economic conditions are relevant mediating factors.

Keywords: natural disasters; earthquakes; event data; satellite nighttime lights; luminosity; grid data; institutions; growth; development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O44 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-env, nep-gro and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Journal Article: Natural disasters and regional development – the case of earthquakes (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7511

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