Earthquake Propensity and the Politics of Mortality Prevention
Governments can significantly reduce earthquake mortality by implementing and enforcing quake-proof construction regulation. The authors examine why many governments do not. Contrary to intuition, controlling for the strength and location of actual...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2010/01/11670035/earthquake-propensity-politics-mortality-prevention http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19863 |
| Summary: | Governments can significantly reduce
earthquake mortality by implementing and enforcing
quake-proof construction regulation. The authors examine why
many governments do not. Contrary to intuition, controlling
for the strength and location of actual earthquakes,
mortality is lower in countries with higher earthquake
propensity, where the payoffs to mortality prevention are
higher. Importantly, however, the government response to
earthquake propensity depends on country income and the
political incentives of governments to provide public goods
to citizens. The opportunity costs of earthquake mortality
prevention are higher in poorer countries; rich countries
invest more in mortality prevention than poor countries in
response to a higher earthquake propensity. Similarly,
governments that have fewer incentives to provide public
goods, such as younger democracies, autocracies with less
institutionalized ruling parties and countries with corrupt
regimes, respond less to an elevated quake propensity. They
therefore have higher mortality at any level of quake
propensity compared to older democracies, autocracies with
highly institutionalized parties and non-corrupt regimes,
respectively. The authors find robust evidence for these
predictions in our analysis of earthquake mortality over the
period 1960 to 2005. |
|---|