Do Natural Disasters Stimulate Individual Saving? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in a Highly Developed Country

Michael Berlemann (), Max Steinhardt () and Jascha Tutt ()
Additional contact information
Jascha Tutt: Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg

No 9026, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: While various empirical studies have found negative growth-effects of natural disasters, little is yet known about the microeconomic channels through which disasters might affect short- and especially long-term growth. This paper contributes to filling this gap in the literature by studying how natural disasters affect individual saving decisions. This study makes use of a natural experiment created by the European Flood of August 2002. Using micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel that we combine with geographic flood data, we compare the savings behavior of affected and non-affected individuals by using a difference-in-differences approach. Our empirical results indicate that natural disasters depress individual saving decisions, which might be the consequence of a Samaritan's Dilemma.

Keywords: natural disasters; floods; growth; saving behavior; difference-in-differences approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 H84 O16 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2015-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp9026.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Do Natural Disasters Stimulate Individual Saving? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in a Highly Developed Country (2015)
Working Paper: Do Natural Disasters Stimulate Individual Saving? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in a Highly Developed Country (2015)
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:iza:izadps:dp9026

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().