Household Finance after a Natural Disaster: The Case of Hurricane Katrina

Justin Gallagher and Daniel Hartley

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2017, vol. 9, issue 3, 199-228

Abstract: Little is known about how affected residents are able to cope with the financial shock of a natural disaster. This paper investigates the impact of flooding on household finance. Spikes in credit card borrowing and overall delinquency rates for the most flooded residents are modest in size and short-lived. Greater flooding results in larger reductions in total debt. Lower debt levels are driven by homeowners using flood insurance to repay their mortgages rather than to rebuild. Mortgage reductions are larger in areas where reconstruction costs exceeded pre-Katrina home values and where mortgages were likely to be originated by nonlocal lenders.

JEL-codes: D14 G21 G22 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.20140273
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (115)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20140273 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5061 (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... ITEahGvVC22T_Kx_EBlL (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Household Finance after a Natural Disaster: The Case of Hurricane Katrina (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:aea:aejpol:v:9:y:2017:i:3:p:199-228

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy is currently edited by Matthew Shapiro

More articles in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().