Life After The Storm: The Effect of L’Aquila Earthquake on Marriage Rates

Lorenzo Cicatiello, Salvatore Ercolano, Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta and Benedetta Parenti

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Natural disasters represent a challenge for policy-makers both for the immediate aftermath and for the mid- and long-term consequences. Knowing the reaction of the struck communities is an invaluable help for planning and implementing informed policies. Embracing such a perspective, this paper aims to provide empirical evidence about the effect that natural disasters exert on the marriage rates reported by the struck communities. The analysis is focused on L’Aquila earthquake that occurred in 2009 and stroke a number of municipalities in the Abruzzo Region in Southern Italy. We exploit a natural experiment setting via a difference-in-differences design, using highly disaggregate data (municipality level) in order to assess whether the shock caused by the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009 resulted in a substantial variation of the marriage rate in the municipalities hit more severely by the natural disaster. We find that the municipalities that payed a higher toll show an increasing higher marriage rate with respect to those that did not experienced major damages.

Keywords: natural disasters; marriage rates; difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-02, Revised 2019-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:96712

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