The Death Toll from Natural Disasters: The Role of Income, Geography, and Institutions

“In the context of the latter, studies have established that both learning effect and generic adaptation measures play a role in reducing damages from natural disasters (Kahn 2005; Anbarci et al. 2005; Toya and Skidmore 2007; Kellenberg and Mobarak 2008; Sharma and Patwardhan 2008; Yamamura 2010, 2012).”

“Empirically, Kahn (2005) found that although richer nations do not experience fewer natural disasters than poorer nations, richer nations suffer fewer deaths from disasters.”

“A few studies have approached this subject (UNDP, 2004a; Kahn, 2005; Toya and Skidmore, 2007; Roberts and Parks 2007; Noy, 2009).”

“Studies show that important factors in the higher toll of disasters in low income regions are the inability of the poorest groups to invest in prevention (Kahn 2005) and hedge against income disruptions (Carter et al.”

“However, there is huge difference between the magnitudes of climate-driven disasters in the developed and developing worlds (Kahn 2005).”

“On a similar note, Kahn (2005) concludes that the average quantities of post-disaster deaths, injuries, and homelessness are reduced as income increases.”

“…testing the link between various socioeconomic factors and a proxy for disaster vulnerability expressed in fatalities, people affected or economic losses per capita (UNDP, 2004; Brooks et al., 2005; Kahn, 2005; Roberts and Parks, 2007; Toya and Skidmore, 2007; Noy, 2009; Rubin and Rossing, 2012).”

“Natural disasters cause widespread damages to physical and human capital in both developed and developing nations, but developing nations suffer more disaster fatalities as compared to developed nations (Kahn 2005; Toya and Skidmore 2007).”

“Richer societies are not per se protected from natural hazards, but richer societies build to higher standards, invest more in protective infrastructure, and can more effectively provide medical and food aid and clean drinking water after the disaster has occurred (Kahn, 2005; Anbarci et al., 2005).”

“The increase in frequency of natural disasters such as floods is expected to continue due to global warming ( Kahn, 2005”

“2005; Kahn 2005; Escaleras et al.”

“24 A ZIP specification allows for over-dispersion resulting from an excessive number of zeroes by splitting the estimation process in two: (1) estimating a logit model to predict the probability that zero fatalities take place in a given county, for a given storm, in a given year; and (2) estimating a Poisson model to…”

“A large body of research has found that democratic governments put higher priority on safeguarding the population’s well-being (e.g. Kahn 2005; Besley and Kudamatsu 2006; Kudamatsu 2012; Flores and Smith 2013; Pieters et al. 2016; Bollyky et al. 2019; Cronert and Hadenius 2021).”

“A few studies also found that countries with higher income, higher educational attainment, greater openness, and a well-established financial system had fewer human and economic losses from natural disasters (Toya and Skidmore 2007; Kahn 2005; Blankespoor et al. 2010).”

“A country’s level of income and quality of institutions (Kahn 2005), and existing natural capital (Rajapaksa et al. 2017) constitute insurance mechanisms against natural disasters.”

“Kahn (2005) took the data about natural disasters from 73 counties across the world from 1980 to 2002.”

“Klomp (2016) used the data from the night time satellite images to show more intensity of manmade and natural disaster in a particular country having high income per capita.”

“…is that more 50 “flexible” social structures (again, both social and physical) are more resilient to climate-related 51 disasters than more “rigid” social structures (e.g. Aldrich 2012; Holling et al. 2002; Kahn 2005; 52 Paton 2006)—a perspective referred to as “flexibility theory” in this paper.”

“Studies done on floods, earthquakes, and tropical cyclones show that a highly elevated proportion of deaths and property damage due to such disasters is pertinent to developing countries [15].”

“2 Much of the literature focused on the economic impact of natural disasters in general; see, for instance, Kahn (2005), Toya and Skidmore (2007), and Noy (2009) to name just a few.”

“Second, the evolution of short-run direct and indirect losses is not clearly understood with competing and conflicting views in the empirical literature (Kahn 2005; Loayza et al.”

“Kahn (2005) also maintains that there exists a negative relationship between economic growth and casualties in disasters.”

“These results are not comparable to the analysis using the EM-DAT data by Kahn (2005) for the period 1980 to 2002.”

“Natural disasters such as drought might question the capability of people in power and democratic states are more likely to provide sufficient aid to their citizens (de Mesquita and Smith, 2009; Kahn, 2005).”

“As the literature (such as Wisner et al. 2003; Kahn 2005, etc.) correctly points out, the magnitude of damage after a natural disaster is an expression of pre-existing political and societal weaknesses.”

“Countries with lowquality institutions, however, do experience on average higher death tolls in natural disasters (Escaleras, Anbarci and Register, 2006; Kahn, 2005).”

“Meanwhile, it is widely documented in the existing literature that countries with strong adaptive institutional capacities, which are usually particularities of high-income countries, suffer less from the damage of earthquakes than countries with weak institutions (Anbarci et al., 2005; Kahn 2005).”

“Kahn (2005) concluded that there exists a negative relationship between GDP per capita and deaths from natural disasters.”

“For example, it is used to analyze accident rates (Kahn, 2005; Hahn & Prieger, 2006) and crime rates (Kelly, 2000; Plassmann & Tideman, 2001).”

“The vast majority of quantitative/econometric studies on this topic focus at the macro- or national-level of analysis (e.g. Kahn 2005; Mechler 2009; Noy 2009).”

“In addition, the level of damage caused by disasters obviously depends on institutional conditions (Kahn, 2005).”

“Democratic government and better quality institutions are also found to reduce the mortality risk of disasters (Kahn, 2005). Anbarci, et al. (2005) argued that in countries with greater income inequality, collective action fails to occur to implement costly investment and regulations for disasters prevention.”

“Immediate causes of flooding include loss of human life, infectious wound, injuries and or diseases that can result in decreased mortality rate [5], [7].”

“For example, previous studies have found that natural disasters, such as typhoons, mudslides, and hailstorms, may adversely affect the physical health of individuals, sometimes causing death (Kahn, 2005; Han et al., 2021), and may also negatively affect individuals’ mental health (Graham et al.”

“Given that inequity is often an important underlying driver of disaster risk [59,60], these are the countries in which challenges for DRR implementation will be high and where different types of policy interventions (or what the DRR community increasingly refers to as the “transformational approach”) that not only add…”

“In this way, we also contribute to the scarce literature on the political economy of earthquakes studying their consequences on different outcomes (see, notably, Kahn 2005, Anbarci et al. 2005, Brancati 2007, and Keefer et al. 2011).”

“The lower is the level of development the higher is the magnitude of costs (AlbalaBertrand, 1993; Anbarci et al,. 2005; Kahn, 2005).”

“In the Economics discipline, there is a growing number of empirical quantitative inquiry on the socioeconomic determinants of disaster impacts on fatalities (such as in Anbarci et al. 2005, Kahn 2005, Peduzzi 2006, Raschky 2008, and Toya and Skidmore (2007)).”

“…Hyogo framework for action (Hfa) i.e. reduction of underlying disaster risk factors (also in the built environment). according to Kahn (2005) and Kellenberg and Mobarak (2008), increasing investments in disaster risk reduction have led to a noticeable reduction in human…”

“The channels through which the disasters produce such different impacts remain as a “black box” in these studies even though some suggest differences in institutional factors (e.g., governance, inequalities) (Cavallo and Noy 2009; Noy 2009; Kahn 2005).”

“Apart from the key variable NATDIS, the initial level of income (LY_1) seems to be related to damage caused by natural disasters (e.g., Kahn 2005; Toya and Skidmore 2007; Kellenberg and Mobarak 2008; Yamamura 2010).”

“First, occurrence of natural disasters is intrinsically exogenous and cannot be manipulated by households (Kahn, 2005).”

“Kahn (2005) indicates that richer nations suffer fewer losses of human life due to economic development rather than fewer disasters, and further analyses show that there are nonlinear relationships between development and damages (Kellenberg and Mobarak 2008; Zhou et al.”