Impact Estimation of Disasters : A Global Aggregate for 1960 to 2007
This paper aims to estimate the global aggregate of disaster impacts during 1960 to 2007 using Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) methodology. The authors selected 184 major disasters in terms of the size of economic damages, based on the data availabl...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20090617085508 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4157 |
| Summary: | This paper aims to estimate the global
aggregate of disaster impacts during 1960 to 2007 using
Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) methodology. The authors
selected 184 major disasters in terms of the size of
economic damages, based on the data available from the
International Emergency Disasters and MunichRe (NatCat)
databases for natural catastrophes. They estimate the losses
and total impacts including the higher-order effects of
these disasters using social accounting matrices constructed
for this study. Although the aggregate damages based on the
data amount to US$742 billion, the aggregate losses and
total impacts are estimated at US$360 billion and US$678
billion, respectively. The results show a growing trend of
economic impacts over time in absolute value. However, once
the data and estimates are normalized using global gross
domestic product, the historical trend of total impacts
becomes statistically insignificant. The visual observation
confirms the inverted U curve distribution between total
impact and income level, while statistical analyses indicate
negative linear relationships between them for
climatological, geophysical, and especially hydrological events. |
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