Does post-disaster aid promote community resilience? Evidence from federal disaster programs

Meri Davlasheridze () and Qing Miao ()
Additional contact information
Meri Davlasheridze: Texas A&M University at Galveston
Qing Miao: Rochester Institute of Technology

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2021, vol. 109, issue 1, No 3, 63-88

Abstract: Abstract Climate- and weather-related disasters have become increasingly frequent and costly, resulting in substantial government spending on disaster assistance. Yet less is known about the effectiveness of disaster aid in enhancing community resilience to future disaster risks. This study examines multiple post-disaster aid programs implemented by the US federal government to support state and local governments as well as households and private businesses. Specifically, we estimate the risk-mitigating effects of these disaster-related programs by linking program spending with reported economic losses from flooding. Our empirical analysis utilizing panel data at the county level finds that low-interest disaster loans lead to the largest reduction in subsequent flooding damage, and grants targeting public infrastructure restoration and flood control measures also reduce future flooding losses. Results suggest a limited loss-mitigating effect of disaster cash aid given to private individuals. These findings provide important implications for federal disaster policy design and suggest that more efficiency gains could be realized by redistributing funds and streamlining processes across programs and agencies.

Keywords: Disaster aid; Public Assistance program; Disaster loans; Hazard mitigation; FEMA; Flooding; Community resilience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-021-04826-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:nathaz:v:109:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-021-04826-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-021-04826-2

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().