The Death Toll from Natural Disasters: The Role of Income, Geography, and Institutions

TLDR

Using a new dataset on annual deaths from disasters in 73 nations from 1980 to 2002, this paper tests several hypotheses concerning natural‑disaster mitigation. The study analyzes these annual death counts across 73 countries over 22 years to assess how income, geography, and institutions influence disaster mortality. The analysis shows that richer nations, democracies, and those with higher‑quality institutions experience lower disaster mortality, indicating that economic development and strong institutions act as implicit insurance against natural shocks, and these patterns suggest that rising disaster frequency from climate change could increase global mortality.

Abstract

Using a new data set on annual deaths from disasters in 73 nations from 1980 to 2002, this paper tests several hypotheses concerning natural-disaster mitigation. Though richer nations do not experience fewer natural disasters than poorer nations, richer nations do suffer less death from disaster. Economic development provides implicit insurance against nature's shocks. Democracies and nations with higher-quality institutions suffer less death from natural disaster. Because climate change is expected to increase the frequency of natural disasters such as floods, these results have implications for the incidence of global warming.