Special Issue on Economic Crises and Disasters; Guest Editors: Shunsuke Managi, Kyushu University and Queensland University of Technology Suman K. Sharma, Nanyang Technological UniversityNo Access

CATASTROPHES AND CONSUMPTION FAILURE

LOPAMUDRA BANERJEE

LOPAMUDRA BANERJEE

Department of Economics, New School for Social Research, The New School, 6 East 16th Street, New York, NY 10003, USA

E-mail Address: banerjel@newschool.edu

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https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217590816400063Cited by:0 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

Disaster research has been concerned with the role of adverse environmental conditions vis-à-vis adverse social conditions in determining food access during catastrophes. This paper investigates the issue, and presents household-data from flood-devastated Bangladesh to argue that, while hunger is clearly associated with exposure to disaster conditions, prior deficits in resources (given the education, occupation and ownership of productive assets of household-members) are more significant in determining the risk of consumption failure during catastrophes. The paper finds that, the risk-generating factors are often interrelated, but, their relative contributions vary across households having varying locations of natural hazards and in consumption distribution.

Keywords:

JEL: Q54, D89, O15

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