Publication: Aid, Natural Disasters and the Samaritan’s Dilemma
Loading...
Published
2009-06-01
ISSN
Date
2012-03-19
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper discusses the impact of foreign aid on the recipient country's preparedness against natural disasters. The theoretical model shows that foreign aid can have two opposing effects on a country's level of mitigating activities. In order to test the theoretical propositions, the authors analyze the effect of foreign aid dependence on ex-ante risk-management activity proxied by the death toll from major storms, floods and earthquakes occurring worldwide between 1980 and 2002. They find evidence that the crowding-out effect of foreign aid outweighs the preventive effect in the case of storms, while there is mixed evidence in the case of floods and earthquakes.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Raschky, Paul A.; Schwindt, Manijeh. 2009. Aid, Natural Disasters and the Samaritan’s Dilemma. Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4952. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4144 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.Publication The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10)This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.Publication The Marshall Plan: Then and Now(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-14)This paper is a product of the Development Policy Team, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Geopolitical Risks and Trade(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-23)This paper studies the impact of geopolitical risks on international trade, using the Geopolitical Risk (GPR) index of Caldara and Iacoviello (2022) and an empirical gravity model. The impact of spikes in geopolitical risk on trade is negative, strong, and heterogeneous across sectors. The findings show that increases in geopolitical risk reduce trade by about 30 to 40 percent. These effects are equivalent to an increase of global tariffs of up to 14 percent. Services trade is most vulnerable to geopolitical risks, followed by agriculture, and the impact on manufacturing trade is moderate. These negative effects are partially mitigated by cultural and geographic proximity, as well as by the presence of trade agreements.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication A Global Urban Risk Index(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)Which cities have the highest risk of human and economic losses due to natural hazards? And how will urban exposure to major hazards change over the coming decades? This paper develops a global urban disaster risk index that evaluates the mortality and economic risks from disasters in 1,943 cities in developing countries. Concentrations of population, infrastructure, and economic activities in cities contribute to increased exposure and susceptibility to natural hazards. The three components of this risk measure are urban hazard characteristics, exposure, and vulnerability. For earthquakes, cyclones, floods, and landslides, single hazard risk indices are developed. In addition, a multi-hazard index gives a holistic picture of current city risk. Demographic-economic projection of city population growth to 2050 suggests that exposure to earthquake and cyclone risk in developing country cities will more than double from today's levels. Global urban risk analysis, as presented in this paper, can inform the prioritization of resources for disaster risk management and urban planning and promote the shift toward managing risks rather than emergencies.Publication Strong, Safe, and Resilient : A Strategic Policy Guide for Disaster Risk Management in East Asia and the Pacific(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-03-06)Experiencing both recurrent small-scale events as well as devastating large-scale catastrophes, no other region in the world is affected by disasters as is East Asia and the Pacific. In the last decade, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Manila, and many other cities have been repeatedly hit by floods. In the last five years, Asia has experienced a large share of wide-scale natural catastrophes, including earthquakes in the Tohoku region in 2011, Padang in 2009, and Wenchuan in 2008; typhoons in 2009 in the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Philippines, and Vietnam; a cyclone in Myanmar in 2008; and large-scale floods in 2011 in Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines. The year 2011 was the costliest year on record for natural disasters with cascading effects (Japan) and trans-boundary consequences (Thailand), adding up to US$380 billion in economic losses, almost doubling the 2005 record of US$262 billion. In the first nine months in 2011, East Asia sustained about 80 percent of all disaster losses worldwide. The executive summary provides a brief overview of the key issues, strategic goals, and recommendations for DRM in East Asia and the Pacific. Chapter one gives an overview of the key trends related to disaster impacts in the region. Chapter two focuses on cross-sectoral issues of institutional arrangements for DRM and outreach to communities. Chapter's three to seven follow the core areas of DRM: risk identification, risk reduction, emergency preparedness, financial protection, and sustainable recovery and reconstruction. The appendixes include additional information related to specific sections of the report, a glossary of key terminology, and a summary of the main activities of the World Bank East Asia and the Pacific disaster risk management team.Publication Natural Disaster Risk Management in the Philippines : Enhancing Poverty Alleviation Through Disaster Reduction(Washington, DC, 2005-10)The Philippines by virtue of its geographic circumstances is highly prone to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tropical cyclones and floods, making it one of the most disaster prone countries in the world. This report seeks to document the impacts of natural disasters on the social and economic development of the Philippines; assess the country's current capacity to reduce and manage disaster risk; and identify options for more effective management of that risk. The Philippine institutional arrangements and disaster management systems tend to rely on a response, or reactive approach, in contrast to a more effective proactive approach, in which disasters are avoided, by appropriate land-use planning, construction and other pre-event measures which avoid the creation of disaster-prone conditions. To evolve to a more proactive role, it is important that a national framework for comprehensive disaster risk management be prepared and implemented. The framework should incorporate the essential steps of integrated risk management, which include risk identification, risk reduction, and risk sharing/financing. The study identified some specific areas under these key themes that would need to be addressed to improve the current system, discussed through the study. The study also found that currently, the Government and individual households bear the majority of costs caused by natural disasters. More effective options for financing disaster risk, and relieving the burden of disasters from the public sector should be explored, including the idea of a catastrophe insurance pool, and/or contingent credit facilities. Also found was that, despite the high hazard risk in the Philippines, the insurance coverage for residential dwellings' catastrophes is almost non-existent. It is stipulated the Bank should examine the ongoing portfolio to identify how its projects can support the goal of disaster risk reduction. In addition, the Bank should consider more direct support to the development of an integrated disaster management risk approach, through the provision of technical assistance and lending.Publication Natural Disasters(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-02)This paper makes the case for why safety nets are an important tool for managing the risk of natural hazards. The use of safety nets is advocated both ex ante, to prevent and mitigate the impact of natural disaster and ex post, to cope with the impacts of natural shocks. Firstly, the paper explores the implications of contextual factors to be taken into account in the design of an effective safety net system to respond to the needs generated by natural disasters. Learning from the responses to a number of recent natural disasters, a typology of the different types of natural hazards which require different approaches to reduce their risk is introduced. Secondly, the paper considers some 'guidelines' for improving the design and implementation of safety nets either to prevent and/or to recover from natural disasters. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations for more effective safety net and suggestions for addressing key issues are outlined.Publication A Conceptual Framework for a Training Curriculum on Natural Disaster Risk Reduction and Management for Agriculture and the Rural Space(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-12)This paper presents the conceptual framework for a training program on integrating disaster risk reduction and climate-change mitigation into Agriculture and Rural Development Department (ARD) programming. Its target audience consists of World Bank task team leaders and their national counterparts and partners working in agriculture and rural settings.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Morocco Economic Update, Winter 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)Despite the drought causing a modest deceleration of overall GDP growth to 3.2 percent, the Moroccan economy has exhibited some encouraging trends in 2024. Non-agricultural growth has accelerated to an estimated 3.8 percent, driven by a revitalized industrial sector and a rebound in gross capital formation. Inflation has dropped below 1 percent, allowing Bank al-Maghrib to begin easing its monetary policy. While rural labor markets remain depressed, the economy has added close to 162,000 jobs in urban areas. Morocco’s external position remains strong overall, with a moderate current account deficit largely financed by growing foreign direct investment inflows, underpinned by solid investor confidence indicators. Despite significant spending pressures, the debt-to-GDP ratio is slowly declining.