Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hallegatte, Stéphane
• Dumas, Patrice

Titel

Can natural disasters have positive consequences? Investigating the role of embodied technical change

Ist Teil von

• Ecological economics, 2009-01, Vol.68 (3), p.777-786

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2009

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• It has been suggested that disasters might have positive economic consequences, through the accelerated replacement of capital. This possibility is referred to as the productivity effect. This effect is investigated using a model with embodied technical change. In this framework, disasters can influence the production level but cannot influence the growth rate, in the same way than the saving ratio in a Solow-like model. Depending on reconstruction quality, indeed, accounting for embodied technical change can either decrease or increase disaster costs, but is never able to turn disasters into positive events. Moreover, a better but slower reconstruction amplifies the short-term consequences of disasters, but pays off over the long-term. Regardless, the productivity effect cannot prevent the existence of a bifurcation when disaster damages exceed the reconstruction capacity, potentially leading to poverty traps.