Do floods scare off residents?

Michael Berlemann, Joel Methorst and Marcel Thum

Economics Letters, 2023, vol. 222, issue C

Abstract: We use the 2002 flood disaster in the German state of Saxony as a natural experiment to study whether the population avoided disaster-prone areas after the flood. Such voting-by-feet location choices should enhance the resilience of municipalities in the future. Our difference-in-differences analysis with data from 419 municipalities over more than 10 years, however, shows that the communities affected by the flood had higher migration development than non-affected communities. The differential effect is also economically significant; the net migration rate is higher by approximately 2.5 people per 1000 inhabitants per year in affected municipalities.

Keywords: Natural disasters; Migration; Demography; State aid; Resilience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:222:y:2023:i:c:s0165176522004165

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110942

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