7 research outputs found
Essays on early-life malnutrition and adulthood socioeconomic outcomes: Bangladesh evidence
This thesis investigates the long-term socioeconomic impacts of early-life malnutrition using two famines and flood in Bangladesh as natural experiment. This thesis exploits national census dataset with 10.58 million observations using difference-in-difference estimation and finds significant effects for the survivors, who were exposed to these events at early ages.<br /
Lack of Food Access and Double Catastrophe in Early Life: Lessons from the 1974–1975 Bangladesh Famine
We study the education outcomes of the 1974–1975 Bangladesh famine on early-life survivors using the 1991 Bangladesh microcensus data. We find that famine adversely affected the survivor children in areas that experienced higher rice prices relative to labour wage. In addition, children living in wealthy households in famine-stricken areas had better education outcomes than children with no famine exposure at all. We also find that, surprisingly, exposure to double catastrophe (i.e., concurrent famine and flood) in early life had weaker effects than exposure to single catastrophe. We show that disaster-alleviation mechanisms worked better in districts affected by double disasters
Natural Disasters and Economic Growth: A Review
This article provides a literature review of economic growth theories and identifies the implications of growth theories in addressing potential impacts of uncertain shocks, that is natural disasters. The extant literature seems inconclusive: some find positive effects of natural disasters on economic growth and others suggest either negative or no effect as such. Using a large panel dataset of 187 countries observed from 1960 to 2010, this article shows that the total number of people affected by floods significantly decreases the annual GDP per capita growth rate, whereas the death toll from floods has no substantial effect on the annual GDP per capita growth rate. One thousand in every one million people affected by floods decrease the GDP per capita growth rate by 0.005 %. This result is plausible, as floods are likely to create havoc in people’s livelihoods rather than claim a high human death toll. The article outlines future directions of research in the field of natural disaster augmented growth empirics
Food Affordability and Double Catastrophe in Early Life: Lessons from the 1974–75 Bangladesh Famine
We study the educational outcomes of the 1974–75 Bangladesh famine among early life survivors using the 1991 Bangladesh micro-census data. We find that famine adversely affected survivor children in areas that experienced higher rice prices relative to labour wages. However, children living in wealthy households in famine-stricken areas escaped the adverse effects and had similar educational outcomes as those with no famine exposure. We also find that, surprisingly, exposure to a double catastrophe (i.e., concurrent famine and flood) in early life had weaker effects on survivor children's education than exposure to a single catastrophe. We show that disaster-alleviation mechanisms were more effective in districts affected by double disasters
Weathering trust
We show that interpersonal trusting behavior that forms in the very long run is subject to change in the short run after natural disasters. By matching our novel spatially disaggregated water height–based flood severity data on the 1998 flood in Bangladesh with individual-level longitudinal World Values Survey data, we find that individuals experiencing floods reduce their interpersonal trust by at least 8.12 percent. On causal mechanisms, we find that individuals who lack access to credit following a flood shock are more likely to lessen their level of trust in others. Our findings also indicate that post-disaster relief crowds out the adverse effects of floods on trust. Our results are robust to a wide array of randomization tests, restrictive specifications, omitted variable biases, falsification and placebo tests, and external validity checks to the extent possible. Our findings highlight the importance of access to financial resources for stabilizing interpersonal trusting behavior in societies