Natural Disasters, Household Welfare, and Resilience: Evidence from Rural Vietnam

Mohamed Arouri (1) , Adel Ben Youssef (2) , Cuong Nguyen-Viet (3)

1 LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans [2008-2011]
2 GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion
3 Chercheur indépendant

The study usescommune fixed-effect regressions to estimate the effect of natural disasters on household welfare and poverty, and subsequently examines household and community characteristics that can strengthen resilience of households to natural disasters. We find that all the three disaster types considered in this study including storms, floods and droughts have negative effects on household income and expenditure. Access to micro-credit, internal remittances and social allowances can help households strengthen the resilience to natural disasters. Households in communes with higher expenditure mean and more equal expenditure distribution are more resilient to natural disasters.

Mots clés: Q54; D12 2; disasters; Natural hazards; Vietnam JEL codes: O12; household welfare; resilience; poverty

Domaines: Economies et finances

Mohamed Arouri, Adel Ben Youssef, Cuong Nguyen-Viet. Natural Disasters, Household Welfare, and Resilience: Evidence from Rural Vietnam. World Development, 2015, 70, pp.59 - 77. ⟨halshs-01109452⟩