Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia

Jérémie Gignoux and Marta Menéndez
Additional contact information
Marta Menéndez: PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, DIAL - Développement, institutions et analyses de long terme, LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: We examine the long-term effects on individual economic outcomes of a set of earthquakes - numerous, large, but mostly not extreme - that occurred in rural Indonesia since 1985. Using longitudinal individual-level data from large-scale household surveys, together with precise measures of local ground tremors obtained from a US Geological Survey database, we identify the effects of earthquakes, exploiting the quasi-random spatial and temporal nature of their distribution. Affected individuals experience short-term economic losses but recover in the medium-run (after two to five years), and even exhibit income and welfare gains in the long term (six to 12 years). The stocks of productive assets, notably in farms, get reconstituted and public infrastructures are reconstructed with some improvements, seemingly partly through external aid, allowing productivity to recover. These findings tend to discount the presence of poverty traps, and exhibit the potential long-term benefits from post-disaster interventions in context where disasters primarily affect physical assets.

Keywords: Natural disasters; Earthquakes; Rural Indonesia; Long-term effects; Welfare; Aid and reconstruction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-sea
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01064506v2
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01064506v2/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia (2016)
Working Paper: Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia (2016)
Working Paper: Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia (2014)
Working Paper: Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01064506

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().