Natural Disasters

Jones: Natural Disasters

Do natural disasters effect long run development?

3 questions:

Do they effect the timing of economic development?

Are they significantly different enough to explain different growth rates?

Are there differences between labor/capital impacts of disasters?

Or, is Europe “safer” than the rest of the world.

Types of disasters

Geophysical (earthquake, volcano, tsunami - the Minoans )

Climatic (drought, typhoons, hailstorms -- Bangladesh)

Biological (epidemics, locusts -- the Black Death)

Social (War, collapsing structures, fires – An-Lu Shan’s rebellion, Yellow River)

Historical evidence

Geophysical – Europe seems to be in a safer zone than the rest of the world

Example: Japan and earthquakes, Atlantis and the Minoans

Climatic – North Europe’s climate cold, but mild winters – and very little variance across time, much variance across small distances

Asian agriculture and the monsoons – feast or famine

Biological – Plague comes from Asia (Chinese and pigs)

Asia also has more endemic (constant) diseases.

Example: the Black Death

Social – Fires, no clear trend. War, seems to be everywhere. European warfare differed in two respects; was more manpower economizing, and was much less destructive of capital.

Example: Mongols in Mesopotamia….

Disasters in Europe tended to impact labor more – leading to a loss of life, which meant that there was more capital, and capital accumulation. How significant this was is still disputed, however.