The effect of natural disasters on economic activity in US counties: A century of data

Leah Boustan, Matthew Kahn, Paul Rhode and Maria Lucia Yanguas

Journal of Urban Economics, 2020, vol. 118, issue C

Abstract: More than 100 natural disasters strike the United States every year, causing extensive fatalities and damages. We construct the universe of US federally designated natural disasters from 1920 to 2010. We find that severe disasters increase out-migration rates at the county level by 1.5 percentage points and lower housing prices/rents by 2.5–5.0 percent. The migration response to milder disasters is smaller but has been increasing over time. The economic response to disasters is most consistent with falling local productivity and labor demand. Disasters that convey more information about future disaster risk increase the pace of out-migration.

Keywords: Natural disasters; Migration; Housing markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (85)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119020300280
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The Effect of Natural Disasters on Economic Activity in US Counties: A Century of Data (2017)
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:eee:juecon:v:118:y:2020:i:c:s0094119020300280

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2020.103257

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Urban Economics is currently edited by S.S. Rosenthal and W.C. Strange

More articles in Journal of Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().