2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Effects of Economic Policy on the Impacts of Natural Disasters
| Project/Area Number |
18530208
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Economic policy
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| Research Institution | Nagoya City University |
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Principal Investigator |
TOYA Hideki Nagoya City University, Faculty of Economics, Associate professor (40285226)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2006 – 2007
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| Keywords | Natural Disaster / Economic Policy / Fiscal Decentralization |
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| Research Abstract |
In this paper we examine the degree to which the human fatalities caused by natural disasters are affected by governmental structure. Over the past twenty-five years interest in fiscal decentralization in developing countries has grown, and many developing countries have sought to implement more decentralized governmental systems. Despite substantial efforts toward fiscal federalism, systematic analysis aimed at assessing the effectiveness of decentralization has been hampered by lack of consistent cross-country measures of effectiveness. In this paper we use data over the period 1972-2005 on natural disaster-induced fatalities collected by the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance/Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (OFDA/CRED) to estimate the relationship between decentralization and deaths caused by natural catastrophes.
We find that while controlling for a number of other economic development measures, countries with more decentralized government structures experience fewer deaths from natural disaster events. This paper contributes to both the literature on the economics of natural disasters and fiscal federalism by showing that human losses, which are most serious in developing countries, are mitigated by decentralization-evidence of effectiveness.
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Research Products
(2 results)
