Una nota breve sobre desastres naturales y crecimiento

Abstract

Los desastres naturales constituyen una seria amenaza a nivel global. Cada año una creciente cantidad de desastres naturales tiene lugar en diferentes regiones del mundo (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters [CRED], 2020a), y se espera que esto se profundice, a futuro, a consecuencia del cambio climático (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2018). En esta nota breve se analizan las predicciones teóricas del impacto de los desastres naturales sobre el crecimiento económico, con especial énfasis en los contrastes presentes en los diferentes modelos.

Natural disasters constitute a serious threat on a global level. Each year they generate large losses, and their consequences affect macroeconomic magnitudes such as growth. The literature on this topic (disasters and growth) is scarce and the theoretical predictions are not unambiguous. In this note, this topic is revisited based on different growth models. The results indicate that the direction of the effect is not obvious from a theoretical perspective and presents wide heterogeneities: thus, the effect differs according to the parameter that is assumed to be affected by the occurrence of the disaster (capital stock, savings rate, technology, etc.) and according to the time horizon considered. Contrary to expectations, a disaster could result in increased growth if it promotes (precautionary) saving, facilitates capital upgrading (replacement of destroyed capital with a newer one), or encourages investment in R&D.