The Chicago Fire of 1871: a bottom-up approach to disaster relief

Emily Skarbek ()

Public Choice, 2014, vol. 160, issue 1, 155-180

Abstract: Can bottom-up relief efforts lead to recovery after disasters? Conventional wisdom and contemporary public policy suggest that major crises require centralized authority to provide disaster relief goods. Using a novel set of comprehensive donation and expenditure data collected from archival records, this paper examines a bottom-up relief effort following one of the most devastating natural disasters of the nineteenth century: the Chicago Fire of 1871. Findings show that while there was no central government relief agency present, individuals, businesses, corporate entities and municipal governments were able to finance the relief effort though donations. The Chicago Relief and Aid Society, a voluntary association of agents with a stake in relief outcomes, leveraged organizational assets and constitutional rules to administer aid. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Keywords: Disaster relief; Aid; Charitable giving; Natural disaster; Chicago Fire 1871; D64; D71; H41; H84 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:160:y:2014:i:1:p:155-180

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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-014-0175-1

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