Social Capital Encourages Disaster Evacuation: Evidence from a Cyclone in Bangladesh

Masahiro Shoji and Akira Murata

Journal of Development Studies, 2021, vol. 57, issue 5, 790-806

Abstract: An essential responsibility of a government is to reduce disaster mortality of citizens by encouraging prompt evacuation. Previous studies document that social capital plays a multifaceted role in facilitating or aggravating evacuation decisions; however, rigorous empirical evidence from developing countries is scarce. Using unique survey data collected from cyclone-affected households in Bangladesh, we examine the association between social capital and the decision to evacuate. We find that those with higher bonding social capital are more likely to evacuate, and the effect is even larger among religious minorities. By conducting a sensitivity test, we confirm that it is implausible to explain these results by unobserved socio-economic status or cyclone damage. We also disentangle five potential mechanisms for the positive effect and demonstrate that it is mainly driven by a reduction in the perceived risk of theft during evacuation. This suggests that bonding social capital compensates for the lack of a well-functioning law enforcement system, contributing to our understanding of the interactive roles of communities and institutions during natural disaster.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2020.1806245 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:jdevst:v:57:y:2021:i:5:p:790-806

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2020.1806245

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().