CRITICAL REVIEW OF METHODOLOGIES ON DISASTER IMPACT

ESTIMATION1

YASUHIDE OKUYAMA

Graduate School of International Relations, International University of Japan, Niigata,

Japan

ABSTRACT
The main aim of this paper is to provide an overview and a critical analysis of the
methodologies used for estimating the economic impact of disaster. Based on the
critical review of methodologies, especially those recently progressed, such as
input-output, social accounting, and computable general equilibrium models, the paper
presents the strengths and weaknesses of the methodologies. In addition, the issues of
impact estimation when applied to developing countries are discussed and analyzed.

1
This background paper was prepared as an input into the joint World Bank – UN Assessment on the
Economics of Disaster Risk Reduction. The author would like to express gratitude to Apurva Sanghi
and Sebnem Sahin for their support, encouragement, and patience.

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1. Introduction

Until the 1980s, the economic impacts of natural hazards and disasters had received
relatively little attention from both researchers and practitioners. Recent large-scale
disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake leading to the Asian Tsunami and
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and more recently the 2008 Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and
the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in China, showed that the understanding of and the
preparation for such hazards, including their impacts and effects to society and the
economy, are urgent tasks around the globe. In addition, a series of disasters in the
mid 1990s, such as the Northridge Earthquake in 1994 and the Kobe Earthquake in
1995, which occurred in developed urban areas and brought considerable damages and
impacts to the society, demonstrated how vulnerable even modern societies are to severe
natural hazards.
While significant progress has been made in recent years in the economic
analysis of disasters, especially in the field of economic modeling for disaster impact
(for example, Okuyama and Chang, 2004a; and an excellent compilation of related
papers by Kunreuther and Rose, 2004a), these have been mostly in the developed
country context. Since the pioneering work by Dacy and Kunreuther (1969), a
generalized framework for the economic analysis of natural disasters had been proposed
(for example, Sorkin, 1982; and Albala-Bertrand, 1993a). The recent advancements
have been more toward empirical analysis and toward strategies for modeling
extensions and modifications to fit them to disaster situations. This trend is due to
improved data availability of disaster damages and losses and to increased
multidisciplinary research activities about disasters, including sociology, economics,
and psychology. The uniqueness of each hazard and of its damages and impacts
presents enormous challenges in economic modeling for disaster impact estimates;
many issues remain unsolved, especially in the developing country context. For
example, while the domination of flow analysis models employed in the above research
indicates that in developed countries the damages to capital stock are rather minor in
terms of macroeconomic context, the damages to both physical and human capital
stocks by a catastrophic disaster in developing countries can become truly devastating,

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potentially washing out a major portion of capital stock in a nation, such as the 1998
floods in Bangladesh (Shah, 1999). In this paper, issues related to disaster impact
estimation in the developing country context are raised and discussed, and various
methodologies for doing so are also reviewed.
It is helpful to first clarify the concept and definition of disaster, since unclear
terminology of the event has caused some confusion about what the impact estimate
should cover. Several terms, such as disaster, hazard, unscheduled event, catastrophic
event, among others, have been used interchangeably in the literature; however, not all
disasters or hazards lead to catastrophic consequences, nor are all hazards or disasters
unscheduled events. In this context, the two terms, ―disaster‖ and ―hazard‖, include a
wider range of events than the others. The distinction between disaster and hazard can
be found in Okuyama and Chang (2004b, p. 2); ―hazard is the occurrence of the
physical event per se, and disaster is its consequence.‖ Ariyabandu (2001) put this
more specifically suggesting that a disaster is an outcome of a hazard impacting on the
vulnerability of a society. Thus, the present paper uses the term, disaster, as the event
that the methodologies are employed to estimate its impact.
In the following section, economic modeling practice for disaster impact
estimate is critically reviewed. Section 3 discusses the current issues of modeling,
such as time, space, and the counteractions. Section 4 discusses the disaster impact
assessment in the developing country context, focusing particularly on long run impact
and negative externalities. The final section concludes with some future directions for
promoting and improving the methodologies.

2. Methodologies on Disaster Impact Estimation: Models for Impact on Flows

Natural disasters can cause physical destructions to built-environment and networks,

such as transportation and lifelines, and can also cause casualties and injuries to human
lives. These damages are often called damages, and are by economics definition the
damages on stocks, which include physical and human capitals. These damages lead
to the interruptions of economic activities, such as production and/or consumption, and
the losses from business interruptions are often called the losses of a disaster. At the

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same time, there is another term called indirect (or secondary) effects, which take into
account the system-wide impact of (indirect) flow losses through interindustry
relationships. For example, if a power company‘s production facility is damaged by a
natural hazard, the power company‘s business is interrupted and cannot produce
electricity for some time until repaired. This production loss is the loss of this
particular power company. On the other hand, another firm, which uses electricity for
their offices, is not damaged by the hazard but cannot operate their business fully
without the supply of electricity, and needs to reduce or stop their production until
power is restored. The business disruption of this firm is called the indirect effect. In
this sense, indirect effects are the system-wide impact of losses.
While some researchers critique that the indirect effects of disaster are ―more a
possibility than a reality‖ (Albala-Bertrand, 1993a, p. 104), the estimation of indirect
effects has been attempted to ―gauge individual and community vulnerability, evaluate
the worthiness of mitigation, determine the appropriate level of disaster assistance,
improve recovery decisions, and inform insurers of their potential liability‖ (Rose, 2004,
p. 13). Indirect effects include a wide array of consequences caused by damages, and
Rose (2004) suggested that the use of ‗higher-order effects‘, instead of indirect effects,
is more appropriate, because of the conflict with the terminology used in economic
models, especially with input-output (IO) model. In this context, losses can be
considered as first-order effects from damages. In contrast to damages on stocks,
losses and higher-order effects are mostly on flows, such as services or output of stocks
over time. And with the use of higher-order effects, another term, total impacts which
are the total of flow impacts, adding losses (first-order losses) and higher-order effects,
should be introduced.
Various economic modeling frameworks have been employed to estimate the
higher-order effects of a disaster. Perhaps, the most widely used modeling framework
is the IO model (for example, Cochrane, 1974, 1997; Wilson, 1982; Kawashima et al.
1991; Boisvert, 1992; Gordon and Richardson, 1996; Rose et al. 1997; Rose and
Benavides, 1998; and Okuyama et al., 1999), and the application of the IO model to
disasters, including both natural and man-made ones, dates back to strategic bombing
studies during World War II (Rose, 2004). The popularity of IO models for disaster
related research is based mainly on the ability to reflect the economic interdependencies

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within a regional economy in detail for deriving higher-order effects, and partly on its
simplicity. The simplicity of the IO framework has enabled integrative approaches, in
which IO models are combined with engineering models and/or data, in order to
estimate higher-order effects that are more sensitive to the changes in physical
destruction. Some examples of this approach include the links with transportation
network models (Gordon et al., 1998, 2004; Cho et al, 2001; Sohn et al., 2004, among
others), with lifeline network models (Rose, 1981; Rose et al. 1997; Rose and
Benavides, 1998), and the comprehensive disaster assessment model, namely HAZUS
(Cochrane et al., 1997).
On the other hand, this simplicity of the IO model creates a set of weaknesses,
including its linearity, its rigid structure with respect to input and import substitutions, a
lack of explicit resource constraints, and a lack of responses to price changes (Rose,
2004). In order to overcome these weaknesses in the context of disasters, several
attempts of refinement and extension of the IO framework have been proposed. For
instance, the shortage of regionally produced inputs under a disaster situation was dealt
with by the integration of a methodology for more flexible treatment of imports
(Boisvert, 1992; and Cochrane, 1997). The issue of supply-side constraints due to the
damages to production facilities was addressed with the allocation model variant of IO
model (Davis and Salkin, 1984); however, this modeling scheme has inherent
deficiencies (Oosterhaven, 1988 and 1989; see Dietzenbacher, 1997, for a solution), and
was later modified by Steinback (2004) to include only backward-linkage effects. The
treatment of price has been transferred to computable general equilibrium (CGE)
models, and the applications to disaster situations are discussed below.
An alternative modeling framework to the IO model is CGE analysis (for
example, Boisvert, 1992; Brookshire and McKee, 1992; Rose and Guha, 2004; and
Rose and Liao, 2005). Unlike IO models, CGE models are non-linear in common
practice, can respond to price changes, can incorporate input and import substitutions,
and can explicitly handle supply constraints. However, Rose and Liao (2005) claim
that most CGE models are intended for long-run equilibrium analysis; hence, in contrast
with the rigidity of the IO model, a CGE model generally leads to the underestimation
of economic impacts due to its flexible adjustment feature. It is argued, however, that
CGE models provide lower impact estimates than IO models, partly because ―not all

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causations in CGE models are unidirectional, i.e., functional relationships often offset
each other‖ (Rose, 2004, p. 27). Another weakness of CGE models is that the
assumption of optimizing behavior can be considered questionable under disaster
situations, where increased uncertainties arise in the near and distant future. Of course,
the more extensive data requirement for CGE modeling presents a major weakness for
empirical analysis of disasters.
Other modeling frameworks have been also employed to estimate higher-order
effects of disasters. The social accounting matrix (SAM) has been utilized to examine
the higher-order effects across different socio-economic agents, activities, and factors.
Notable studies using a SAM or one of its variants include Cole (1995, 1998, and 2004)
among others. Like IO models, the SAM approach has rigid coefficients and it tends
to provide upper bounds for the estimates. On the other hand, the SAM framework, as
well as extended IO models2 and CGE models, can derive the distributional impacts of
a disaster in order to evaluate equity considerations for public policies against disasters.
Econometric models, which are based on time-series data that may not include any
major disasters, appear ill-suited for disaster impact analysis. Ellson et al. (1984),
however, argue that they examined the damage estimates of major earthquakes in the
United States and found that the damages do not appear really outside of the historical
variability of the regional economy in response to more traditional shocks and cyclical
fluctuations. Furthermore, econometric models are statistically rigorous, can provide
stochastic estimates, and have forecasting capabilities. They do require a large data set
(time-series as well as cross-section) though, and cannot easily distinguish between
direct and higher-order effects (Rose, 2004). The strengths and weaknesses of these
four approaches are summarized in Table 1:
Table 1. Summary of Methodologies

Strengths Weaknesses
IO - simple structure - linear structure
- detailed interindustry linkages - rigid coefficients
- wide range of analytical - no supply capacity constraint
techniques available - no response to price change

2
The disaster related studies using extended I-O model include Okuyama et al. (1999).

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 - easily modified and integrated - overestimation of impact
with other models

SAM - more detailed interdependency - linear structure

among activities, factors, and - rigid coefficients
institutions - no supply capacity constraint
- wide range of analytical - no response to price change
techniques available - data requirement
- used widely for development - overestimation of impact
studies
CGE - non-linear structure - too flexible to handle changes
- able to respond to price change - data requirement and calibration
- able to cooperate with - optimization behavior under
substitution disaster
- able to handle supply capacity - underestimation of impact
constraint
Econometric - statistically rigorous - data requirement (time series
- stochastic estimate and cross section)
- able to forecast over time - total impact rather than direct
and higher-order impacts
distinguished

Most of the above methodologies3 reviewed are considered as flow analysis

models estimating the higher-order effects of a disaster, which are the effects on flows.
The reason for the popularity of flow analysis models in estimating disaster impacts,
according to Rose (2004), is that ―flow measures are superior to stock measures in many
ways‖ (Rose, 2004, p.14). The strengths of flow measures can be summarized as: 1) it
can measure the impacts (business interruptions) without stock damages; 2) it is a

3
While the study by Ellson et al. (1984) employed the econometric model with the mixture of flow and
stock variables, econometric model can be tailored to include only stock or flow variables, depending on
the research interest. Some examples of econometric analysis with only stock variables are discussed in
the following section.

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performance measure whereas stock measure involves the life-cycle assessment of
capital with depreciation; 3) it is more consistent with other conventional
macroeconomic indices, such as Gross Domestic (Regional) Product (GDP or GRP);
and 4) it shows the short-run impact of a disaster, which is oftentimes convenient for
policy discussions against disasters.
In addition, the above models have been used for both ex-ante and ex-post
analyses of disasters. Ex-ante analysis of disasters can be done with a series of
hypothetical scenario runs and/or by integrating Monte-Carlo simulation with the model
to produce probabilistic impact estimates (for example, Shinozuka and Chang, 2004,
and Shumuta, 2004). While these simulations can provide policy implications and
insights for the near future events, more stochastic forecast toward the distant future
should rely on econometric models. With the econometric models, the impacts of
future disasters are turned to become social and economic risks with the probability, and
the feasibility analysis of the countermeasures against disasters over time can utilize the
results (for example, Freeman et al., 2002, and Cardenas et al., 2007). For the ex-post
analysis of disasters, the above methodologies are used to a wide range of disasters, as
reviewed above.

3. Methodological Issues

Features specific to disasters, such as negative (destruction) and the following positive
(recovery and reconstruction) shocks to an economy in a short period of time, a wide
range of physical damages across multiple locations, and behavioral changes in a crisis
situation, should be incorporated to the methodology in order to clearly articulate what
is going on in the aftermath of a disaster. However, most economic models assume
gradual and incremental changes over time and uniform or monotonic effect over space.
Thus, when applying such models, it is difficult to cope with the features specific to
disasters. In the following, attempts to extend the modeling framework to handle these
issues are discussed.

3.1. Time

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The duration of a hazard occurrence, not of a disaster (see above for the difference in
their definitions), varies from one hazard to another: ground shakes of an earthquake
last around 30 seconds to one minute, while a large-scale flood can remain from a few
weeks to a few months. However, these time frames are still considered short in an
economic modeling sense. Mainly due to data availability and to the
equilibrium-oriented assumption, the time frame of most economic models is annual
while some models operate with a quarterly or monthly frequency. Moreover, the
activities of recovery and reconstruction after a hazard are conducted much more
rapidly and simultaneously in multiple locations than usual construction activities.
These features of a disaster generate seesawing temporal changes and lead to
considerable temporally-intense interactions of economic activities. Hence, the use of
static economic models potentially cancels out the positive and negative impacts in the
long run and then often ends up estimating insignificant total impacts (Albala-Bertrand,
1993).
Attempts to incorporate the dynamic nature of disaster situations have indeed
been made. Cole (1988, 1989) proposed lagged expenditure models through extending
the standard IO framework. Concerning the time necessary to produce goods and
taking into account the process of labor market adjustment, among other things, Cole‘s
lagged IO models aim to capture the process of impact (or growth) from a factory
closure (or production expansion) within the IO framework. With a similar objective,
but putting more emphasis on production chronology and production modes, Okuyama
et al. (2004) employed the sequential interindustry model (SIM) for disaster impact
analysis, creating a quarterly IO model with the SIM modification. The SIM
framework was originally introduced by Romanoff and Levine (for example, Romanoff
and Levine, 1986) in response to the need for analyzing interindustry production in a
dynamic economic environment, such as large construction projects where the effects
on production and employment are transitory. Okuyama (2006) later extended the
SIM with the inclusion of an inventory function, and demonstrated the temporal
distribution of higher-order effects from hypothetical lifeline disruptions.
Although the SIM framework can handle the shorter time period better than the
conventional economic models do, in order to provide greater insight into temporal
interindustry linkages, it is still not sufficiently flexible because of its discrete nature.

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For a more flexible modeling scheme in terms of time, Donaghy et al. (2007) proposed
a continuous-time formulation of a regional econometric-input-output model (REIM) to
capture higher-order effects of unexpected and extreme events, i.e. disasters, and of
nonlinear continuous event recovery processes. Their continuous-time model
demonstrates the capability to easily accommodate a range of short- and long-term
phenomena in disaster situations. Another direction may be the application of
dynamic CGE models; however, the issue of temporal substitution in a disaster situation
can become troublesome, and its application has not been made to disaster situations to
this date. While these extensions of the conventional economic models shed some
light on the temporal feature of disaster impacts, the modeling scheme is still considered
somewhat ad hoc, since no definitive theories have been established for their application
to the idiosyncrasy of conventional models (Rose, 2004).

3.2. Geographical Space

Since disasters can create a wide range of impacts over space, the spatial dimension of
higher-order effects has been dealt in many ways. One way to do this is the
development of an interregional impact analysis of a disaster, because a large natural
hazard can create impacts that spread well beyond the boundary of the region in which
the hazard occurred. For example, Okuyama et al. (1999) employed a two-region
interregional IO table to estimate the higher-order effects of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake,
both in the region where the earthquake occurred and in the rest of Japan. As
mentioned above, various integrative approaches with transportation models have been
attempted for analyzing the spatial distribution of higher-order effects. For instance,
Sohn et al. (2004) calculated the multi-regional impact of a hypothetical New Madrid
Earthquake in the United States, utilizing the interregional commodity flow model
based on the Leontief-Strout-Wilson-type modeling framework. However, these
studies are based on the IO framework, and the changes in interregional trade patterns
are dealt with either in an ad hoc way or in a transportation engineering way
(minimizing the total transportation time). In this line of research, Tsuchiya et al.
(2007) proposed a spatial CGE (SCGE) model, which includes a transportation model
that can estimate interregional freight flows and passenger trips, to measure the impacts
of transportation network disruptions by catastrophic events. This approach is

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particularly useful when the price difference of some commodities between regions
takes place due to damages in one region‘s economy and/or transportation disruptions
between regions, causing the increase of transportation cost. Their SCGE model also
includes the feature of short-run equilibrium, rather than long-run equilibrium as in
usual CGE analysis, to accommodate with the conditions under a disaster situation,
including the restriction on the movements of labor and capital.
The damages and losses of a disaster, such as a large earthquake or a tornado,
are often not uniform across the region: some areas are heavily destructed, whereas
other areas are virtually untouched. In order to analyze the sensitivity of spatial
distribution of damages and higher-order effects, the following extensions have been
made using spatially disaggregated economic models. Cole‘s (1998) multi-county
SAM was constructed based on county-level economic data and geographic information
system (GIS) based location data, and was applied to lifeline failures in the Memphis
region. Disaggregating further economic information to smaller geographical areas,
van der Veen and Logtmeijer (2003) employed the concept of economic hot spots,
through which multipliers from the IO table are visualized as a contour map using GIS.
This visualization does not directly provide the detailed information about the
higher-order effects of a disaster, but can illustrate which locations are more vulnerable
(or important) in terms of economic interdependency. Extending the concept of
economic hot spots, Yamano et al. (2007) proposed a disaggregation of a multiregional
IO model to a district level (500-meter grid) in order to show the spatial distributions of
economic activities and of potential higher-order effects. The strength of their finer
geographical-scale model is to clearly identify which district is crucial in terms of
economic losses.

3.3 In-Built Counteractions

As mentioned before, Albala-Bertrand (1993, p. 104) claims that indirect (higher-order)
disaster effects are ―often unimportant for the economy and society as a whole and
rapidly counteracted within the disaster area,‖ since ―in-built societal mechanisms may
prove sufficient to prevent most potential indirect (higher-order) effects on the economy
and society.‖ Meanwhile Dacy and Kunreuther (1969, p. 64) indicated the sympathetic
behavior of mutual aid in a chaotic situation, leading to the situation that ―the supply

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and demand curves may shift unexpected ways‖ in extreme circumstances. These
counteractive mechanisms and behavioral changes have started to receive increased
attention in recent years (Kunreuther and Rose, 2004b). Some attempts to incorporate
behavioral changes, as negative externality, in a disaster situation have been made.
For example, Okuyama et al. (1999) included the final demand decrease in the rest of
Japan after the Kobe earthquake, since people outside of the damaged region felt sorry
for the event and for people in the Kobe area, due to the catastrophic destruction of a
major city and a large number of casualties, and tended to reduce their discretionary
purchases. Or, people may purchase necessary goods for the damaged area, such as
blankets and/or food, and may donate them for helping the people in the damaged areas,
instead of buying other goods for themselves. These types of behavioral changes
(consumption pattern changes) have not been well studied or modeled yet, although
these behavioral changes are a part of the in-built counteractions.
Another type of in-built counteractions is the so-called economic resilience,
―which refers to the inherent ability and adaptive response that enables firms and
regions to avoid maximum potential losses‖ (Rose and Liao, 2005, p. 76). In the
disaster related literature, Tierney (1997) studied the business coping behavior and
community response in disaster situations, Bruneau et al. (2003) introduced community
resilience as the in-built counteractions of a community, and Rose and Liao (2005)
modeled economic resilience successfully in the CGE modeling framework. In the
latter model, inherent resilience, i.e. the ability to substitute inputs and/or reallocate
resources under normal circumstances, is embodied in the production function for
individual businesses, while adaptive resilience, i.e. the ability in crisis situations with
extra effort, is set as the changes in the parameters. While the extent of resiliency
across economic sectors has been studied empirically by Kajitani et al. (2005a and
2005b), the further studies on theoretical foundation of economic resilience need to be
carried out so that more comprehensive impact estimate of a disaster, taking into
account of resiliency mechanism, can be produced.

4. Measurement Issues in the Context of Developing Countries

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The empirical studies with the above flow analysis models, or other methodologies,
often found that the estimated total impact of a disaster in a short run, i.e. the sum of
negative impacts caused by direct losses and higher-order effects and positive impacts
from recovery and reconstruction activities, become negligible or even positive
(Albala-Bertrand, 1993a and 1993b, Tol and Leek, 1999, Okuyama et al., 1999, among
others). On the other hand, the methodologies reviewed above can cover only the
short run economic consequences and can hardly cover the full scale of impacts,
including the long run effect on economic growth, psychological impacts, deterioration
of public health, personal losses, and livelihood disruptions, which may be
proportionally higher in developing countries (Pelling et al., 2002). In this section, the
issues of disaster impact estimate, especially in the development context, are discussed.

4.1. Development
Most empirical studies with cross-country data investigating the relationship
between development level and disaster losses conclude that correlation between them
is negative, i.e. ―the higher the level of development, the smaller both the number of
deaths, injured, and deprived, and the relative material losses‖ (Albala-Bertrand, 1993a,
p.202). Similar results are found in Anbarci et al., 2005; Kahn, 2005; Toya and
Skidmore, 2005, among others. This appears consistent with the disaster theory that as
countries develop and grow, they should have sufficient resources, such as financial
and/or technological ones, to better manage disaster risk through the implementation of
countermeasures and to better manage the adverse impact of disasters. Some policy
analysts have suggested that a way to reduce disaster damages and losses for less
developed countries should be to develop and grow faster (for example, Okonski, 2004,
and Hoke, 2005).
However, with the recent increasing complexity of social and economic
structure and interdependency within and across countries, this relationship may not be
as straightforward as it seems. According to Lester (2008), direct losses from disaster
(as % of GDP) appear to have a negative correlation with GDP per capita; however, as
GDP per capita increases, the complexity of economic system also increases and thus
the higher-order effects (as % of GDP) has a positive correlation with GDP per capita;
as a result, the total impact over GDP per capita has an inverted ―U‖ shape curve. This

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implies that the most potentially affected economies by disaster will tend to be
middle-income-level economies. This observation is shared with Benson and Clay
(1998). They claimed that the most vulnerable economies are not the most
underdeveloped, since least developed countries tend to have simple economic
structures, such as agriculture. While middle-income-level economies with some
diversifications seem more secure, because of intertwined economic activities between
industries, however, the higher-order-effects can be much greater than in a simple
agro-economy, and the total impacts from a disaster can be larger than in a simple
economy. This is exactly the point that flow analysis models aim to address—the
complexity of economic activities across industries lead to spread higher-order effects
to larger extent. At the same time, Kellenberg and Mobarak (2008) claim that this
inverted U shape relationship could be attributable to behavioral changes at micro level
in response to income increase. They argue that the risk-return trade off will swing in
favor of return (consumption) at low levels of income where the marginal utility of
consumption is higher, but then will swing to risk mitigation as income increases (the
marginal utility of consumption becomes relatively low). Their empirical analysis of
133 countries over 28 years showed the stronger tendency of this inverted U shape
non-linearity for floods, landslides, and windstorms than for extreme temperature events
or earthquakes. This result implies that ―the achievement of the simultaneous goals of
natural disaster risk reduction and poverty elimination cannot be assumed to be
complementary for all disaster types‖ (p. 779). In this context, particularly for ex-ante
analysis to assess disaster risk, it is advisable to control income level and disaster type
in the analysis of disaster impact so that different effects are taken into account.

4.2. Long Run Growth

Only a limited number of empirical studies4, compared to the number of studies
on impact studies or on development, have been carried out for investigating the effects
of disasters on long run economic growth caused by stock losses. Skidmore and Toya
(2002) found that while climatic disasters are positively correlated with long-term
economic growth, investment on human capital, and total factor productivity growth,

4
The recovery from war destructions has been studied slightly more often (see for example, Davis and
Weinstein, 2002 and 2004; and Miguel and Roland, 2005).

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geological disasters are negatively correlated (or sometimes statistically insignificant)
with economic growth. They attributed this result to the notion that climatic disasters
(frequent and predictable to some extent) are threat to property but not life, whereas
geological disasters (less frequent and unpredictable) are threat to both property and life.
Moreover, their results also indicated that climatic disasters are associated with the
growth of total factor productivity, indicating that climatic disasters may provide the
opportunity to update capital stock and to adapt new technologies. This last point is
the motivation of the research by Cuaresma et al. (2008), in which the relationship
between technological transfer to and disaster in developing countries in the long run is
examined. Their results contradict with Skidmore and Toya‘s and instead find that
disaster risk is negatively correlated to the extent of technological transfer, while only
countries with higher level of development (higher level of per capita income) can
benefit from technological transfer after a disaster. Similar results to Cuaresma et al.
are found in Rasmussen (2004) with the data of countries in the Eastern Caribbean
Currency Union, which indicate that the long run effects of natural disasters on growth
are inconclusive. This disagreement of the results among the above studies may be
due to the fact that ―disaster variables are somewhat crude measures‖ (Skidmore and
Toya, 2002, p. 682), and especially for the intensity of disaster (physical and economic
losses) variable, there is no standard definition or method devised and applied across the
cases. This issue has to be addressed in order to promote and encourage this line of
research.
Lack of research in this area may have resulted from several other reasons as
well: the (in)availability of reliable data on capital losses, especially on human capital;
the complexity of assessing the value of capital over time; the intricacy of investment
decisions on damaged capital under and after a disaster (Okuyama 2003); the lack of
policy maker‘s interest in the distant future5; and the difficulty of separating out the
disaster-induced effects in a long run, especially for developing countries where the
influences to their macroeconomic conditions from other factors, such as political
instability, debt burden, among other things, appear much greater than in developed
countries. In addition, since a large portion of empirical case studies employ flow

5
Chambers (1989) stated that the demands of poverty usually out-compete the demands of vulnerability
in developing countries.

15
analysis models for the immediate impact estimate, and these results suggest that most
total effects on economic aggregates become negligible (or not so spectacular) within a
few years (Albala-Bertrand, 1993a), or so assumed (see for example, Okuyama et al.,
1999). However, Albala-Bertrand (1993a) is cautious on this, especially for
developing countries‘ case: ―Nonetheless, there appear to be some important economic
effects which go beyond simple physical reconstruction and improvement‖ (p.200).
Theoretical investigation on this issue also received little interest or attention
from researchers. Dacy and Kunreuther (1969) were first to mention this weakness
and were also first to bring the growth model approach to the analysis of long run
impact. This approach was innovative in that it explicitly included stock damages in
the analytical framework. Okuyama (2003) extended their idea to employ a simple
Solow-Swan model for examining the effects of stock loss by a disaster. Assuming the
economy will return to the same steady state, his analysis indicates increased saving rate
for recovery and reconstruction of damaged capital and slightly slower recovery rate
when the damaged capital is replaced with the one using new and updated technology.
In an economic dynamics and fluctuations context, Hallegatte and Ghil (2008) analyzed
the macroeconomic response to natural disasters using an endogenous business cycle
model6. The analysis of their theoretical model for a hypothetical country, simulating
disequilibria and the adjustment processes, found a ‗vulnerability paradox‘ (p. 586) that
an economy with a high growth rate appears more vulnerable to disasters than with a
slow growth rate (or in a depression) where some production factors are left unused.
With the exception of these above studies, and studies on pollution-induced disasters,
such as global warming and the increase of sea surface temperature (see for example,
Ikefuji and Horii, 2006), the connection between the long run impact of natural disaster
and theoretical modeling approach has not been extended any farther yet. The reasons
for this absence of interest may be similar to the empirical studies‘ discussed above, or
perhaps the theoretical formalization of disaster per se has not reached the level where
the theoretical model can incorporate and handle various complexities (Okuyama, 2007).
This situation, together with the limited empirical studies, needs to be improved in order

6
Business cycle models are often categorized as a short run model in macroeconomics, but in this paper
they are put in this subsection on long run growth because of its longer time horizon than flow analysis
models.

16
to link disasters with development theory (otherwise, it should be proven that disasters
have no long run impact).
In the context of long run growth and disasters, the studies on the impact of
human capital loss have been also very limited. While the publicity of human toll,
such as deaths, injuries, and missing, is usually very high in disasters, these human
capital losses are usually counted as the decrease of labor and/or consumers in flow
analysis models (see for example, Okuyama et al., 1999) or are left out in short run
analysis (Albala-Bertrand, 1993b), because the effect of human capital losses has long
run implications and cannot be fully incorporated in short run analysis. In general,
human capital is much more difficult to ―recover‖ or ―reconstruct‖ than physical capital
per se, because its formation requires education and/or training; health investments and
so on; and the accumulation takes some time. In a disaster situation, this may not be
so dire in developed countries, since there is an adequate size of labor market across the
levels of human capital (from skilled to unskilled) or a sufficient size of idle labor.
However, in developing countries, the situation becomes complicated. Since the
average educational attainment level is usually lower in developing countries than in
developed countries, the quantity of skilled labor tends to be limited. While this
implies that they earn comparatively higher wages than unskilled labor can and thus can
afford to be in a safer and relatively hazard-resistant location and/or structure, on the
other hand, once their lives are lost or damaged (injured), such skilled labor cannot be
easily replaced. Unskilled labor, with low wage level, lives and works in relatively
hazard-prone areas; in fact, most of the casualties in disasters are ―the poorest countries
and their weakest socio-political groups‖ (Albala-Bertrand, 1993a, p.90). Whereas
unskilled labor is at higher risk, such labor appears to be abundant in developing
countries. So, while the damaged human capital for unskilled labor can be ―restored‖,
the restoration process may accelerate the poverty problem (because idle labor need to
stick with low wage jobs, intensify rural-urban migration, etc.). Albala-Bertrand
(1993a) pointed this out that ―long-range effects of disaster situation do not primarily
depend on disaster loss but on its interference with on going social dynamics‖ (p. 204).
This is also the point that studies on the long-run impact of disaster are highly desired.

4.3. Negative Externalities

17
 Natural disasters are different events from traffic accidents or even pandemics,
in that they can lead to a large number of simultaneous tragic deaths and injuries and
leave the affected people feeling hopeless against the hazard per se7. This can in turn
create disaster-specific negative externalities to the affected economy and/or
surrounding regions. Because of the extent of catastrophe, even survivors in the
damaged area are often affected psychologically, such as depression and/or
post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), and these conditions may lead to long term
adverse consequences, for example decreased productivity. In addition to the personal
impact from threat (hazard), Norris (2005) found through a review of the previous
studies that community destruction was more strongly related to decrease in regaining
positive motivation, leading the affected to feel less positive about the community, less
enthusiastic, less energetic, and less able to enjoy life, and concluded that natural
disasters in developing countries often produce severe effects on the public‘s mental
health. This may lead to losses in productivity, and hence an indication of a
disaster-specific negative externality. On the other hand, based on a survey of Sri
Lanka micro-enterprise owners affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and
Tsunami, de Mel et al., (2008) found that ―mental health recovery is largely a function
of time since the disaster, and is not strongly related to individual-level economic
recovery‖ (p. 514). However, the economic impact of negative externalities based on
psychological effects is largely unknown, in terms of how and to what extent it affects
economic activities, and needs to be further investigated.
After the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, Miyao (1995) suggested that the increase in
lay-offs and unemployment, the decreased value of wealth, and/or the decrease of
consumption by depression as the consequences of disasters, may have significant
effects throughout the economy. The first two effects can be incorporated and
evaluated with flow analysis models and stock analysis models, respectively, as
discussed above. However, the third effect, decreased consumption by depression,
which not only can take place in the damaged area but also can spread to the
surrounding areas, has been often overlooked. Okuyama et al. (1999) reported this

7
Again, while the occurrence of hazards cannot be prevented or even reduced, the extent of disaster can
be mitigated with appropriate countermeasures and preparedness. This is the main reason for
understanding the full scale of disaster impact.

18
effect in the case of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, Japan, and Hewings and Okuyama
(2003) also reported the consumption slump after the terrorist attacks on September 11,
2001 in the United States. In these cases, consumers delayed purchases of major items
because of the depression and/or catastrophic atmosphere felt after the event, and this
turned out to be critical for the economic conditions during the recovery period.
Empirical studies on decreased consumption in a disaster situation in developing
countries was investigated by Auffret (2003), in which he proposed the framework to
analyze the effects of catastrophic events on household and aggregate welfare and tested
it with the Caribbean and Latin American countries for 1970-99. While the Caribbean
countries have suffered a high volatility of consumption over the years, his framework
suggested that the volatility of consumption comes from production shocks by
catastrophic events and the shocks are transformed into consumptions shocks, mostly
due to underdeveloped or ineffective risk management mechanisms in those countries.
Consumption decline or volatility after a disaster in the Auffret‘s case may be caused
through endogenous factors in an economy, rather than externalities; however, it may
create further depressed atmosphere (negative externality) where the disaster already
brought calamity.
In summarizing the above negative externalities discussed here, the effects can
be categorized to three-fold: personal losses and depression caused by the occurrence of
a hazard can be considered as direct psychological effect; the community-level
psychological impact as the supply (production) side effect, or indirect psychological
effect; and, the decreased consumption as the demand (consumption) side effect, or
secondary psychological effect. While some other negative externalities can be
identified, above issues need to be included in the evaluation of disaster impacts for a
more comprehensive understanding of the event‘s impact.

5. Conclusions

Recent frequent and severe disasters around the world have increased the interests and
urgency of researchers and policymakers to investigate and understand the extent and
significance of economic impacts. Disaster, as a phenomenon, is quite different from

19
any other economic events, like the recent global financial crisis, in many ways: sudden
occurrence of the event; loss of lives; negative externalities; non-uniform distribution of
damages over space; and a dynamic trend change from large negative shocks to a
positive demand injection for recovery and reconstruction. Therefore, the impact
estimate of disasters is very delicate methodologically, since standard economic models
assume gradual, incremental, and uniform changes. Yet, as reviewed above, there are
methodologies in use for disaster impact analysis, such as IO, SAM, CGE, and
econometric models, with their attendant strengths and weaknesses, for example
overestimation of impact in IO and SAM and underestimation in CGE. These
methodologies have advanced significantly through modification and extension of their
frameworks and/or integration with other models, to address specific features.
However, challenges, such as the assessment of long run impact and incorporation of
negative externalities, remain, especially in the developing country context.
The above discussions are, however, from the viewpoint of researchers, i.e. the
supply side of methodologies. The demand, or user, side of methodologies may often
have slightly different perspectives (see discussions in Okuyama, 2007), and it is
important to see how the two perspectives can reconcile the differences. Analysis of
disaster impact can be utilized by many users as follows:
a) emergency management officials (ex-post response);
b) policy makers for preparedness and mitigation policies (ex-ante response);
c) development planners; and
d) a wide range of researchers who are/will be engaging the disaster impact
analysis.
Flow analysis models can be utilized by a) emergency management and b) policy
makers to grasp the size and extent of disaster effects within a short period of time. In
this case, the users do not require the detail or sophistication of methodology per se;
rather, they demand the credibility (not accuracy) of the impact estimate. At the same
time, a) emergency management would also like to find the severity and extent of
negative externalities from psychological impact so that appropriate response, such as
dispatching psychiatrists for providing medical treatment, can be made in the damaged
area.
Long run impact analysis is necessary for the decision making of c)

20
development planners. Especially in developing countries, physical recovery from a
disaster may involve development implications (Albala-Bertrand, 1993a). As
indicated in the previous section, stock analysis models are desperately craved for both
empirical analysis and theoretical progress. At the same time, the connection between
disaster-induced development and other development issues, such as poverty and
structural inequality, must be also carefully investigated. Meanwhile, in order to
advance our understanding of disasters and their impacts, it is essential that d) a wide
range of researchers cooperate together. Issues discussed in the previous section, such
as long run impact and negative externalities, especially in the developing country
context, should receive more attention.
All the above discussions here, in turn, lead toward the necessity of reliable data
collection of disasters, and it appears now that having standardized definitions and data
of damages and losses for all the disasters remains a dream. West and Lenze (1994)
suggested that the more sophisticated impact models become, the more precise
numerical data will be required, while imperfect measurements of the damages and
losses of a disaster are often the case. In international settings, definitions of damages
and losses are often different across countries, let alone the definition of economic
impacts. As economic structures within a country and between countries have become
much more complex and intertwined, the methodologies for both flow and stock
analyses have also been more sophisticated. Whereas the demand for details are
different among the users discussed above, disaster data have to be standardized,
reliable, and consistent to some extent for all disasters in order to make cross-disaster
analysis. While collecting such data retrospectively for the past cases is hardly
affordable and unrealistic, it is never too late to set and implement some international
standards for future events, such as the method devised by the Economic Commission
for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC, 2003). On this front, it may also be
useful to link economic models for disaster with other established indicators of
development, such as the Economic Vulnerability & Resilience Monitor (Econ-VR
Monitor) of the United Nation‘s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
(UN-ISDR), so that the data collection and analysis can be streamlined and linked
together, and that the models and the resulting analyses will be much more useful to the
disaster community, researchers, and practitioners a like.

21
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