Modeling Impact of Natural Hazard-Induced Disasters on Income Distribution in the United States

Lin Fang; Jiayu Wu; Tatjana Miljkovic

doi:10.1007/s13753-017-0148-3

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Article Navigation > International Journal of Disaster Risk Science > 2017 > 8(4): 435-444

Lin Fang, Jiayu Wu, Tatjana Miljkovic. Modeling Impact of Natural Hazard-Induced Disasters on Income Distribution in the United States[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2017, 8(4): 435-444. doi: 10.1007/s13753-017-0148-3

Citation:

Lin Fang, Jiayu Wu, Tatjana Miljkovic. Modeling Impact of Natural Hazard-Induced Disasters on Income Distribution in the United States[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2017, 8(4): 435-444. doi: 10.1007/s13753-017-0148-3

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Modeling Impact of Natural Hazard-Induced Disasters on Income Distribution in the United States

doi: 10.1007/s13753-017-0148-3

Department of Statistics, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA

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The authors are grateful to the editors and the anonymous reviewers whose feedback and edits greatly improved the quality of this article.

Available Online: 2021-04-26

Abstract

Abstract

Economic damage due to hurricane activities has been shown to impact income inequality in the coastal states of the United States. We consider 17 other natural hazards, in addition to hurricanes, that affected the entire United States for the period 1970-2013. Two fixed effects models were developed to quantify the relationship between income inequality and economic and demographic variables, including crop and property losses from natural hazard-induced disasters. These models include state-byyear and region-by-year fixed effects models. Our findings show that the damages from all natural hazards impact income distribution across the United States, not only in hurricane-affected areas, but also in non-hurricane states. The results of our study have important implications for the insurance industry and government policymakers.
- Disaster insurance,
- Gini coefficient,
- Income distribution,
- Natural hazardinduced disasters,
- United States

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