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The effects of natural disasters on household's preferences and behaviour

Crawford School of Public Policy | Arndt-Corden Department of Economics

Event details

PhD Seminar (Econ)

Date & time

Friday 06 February 2015
9.30am–11.00am

Venue

Seminar Room 3, Level 1, JG Crawford Building 132, Lennox Crossing, ANU

Speaker

Sirikarn Lertamphainont, PhD scholar, Crawford School.

Contacts

Robert Sparrow
61253885

This paper studies the consequences of the 2011 mega flood in Thailand on subjective expectations, preferences, and behavioural choices of the Thai rice-farming households. First, we found that the 2011 flood seemed to make the households adjust upward their subjective expectations of future flood events and of possible damage caused by future floods. The flood also increased the expectation of the household on government’s assistance. Second, we found that the 2011 flood was positively associated with higher risk aversion in which more risk averse households were more likely to adopt such strategies to prevent and mitigate the severity and the damage of future floods. Next, we found that the household who were directly hit by the flood seemed to be less altruistic. Finally, we found that the farming household’s incentive to save more was negatively correlated with the subjective expectation of government’s assistance in the events of future severe floods. These findings shed light on the credibility of government’s assistance in the aftermath of widespread natural disasters and the role of governments and insurance markets in future natural disaster risk management.

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