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Creative Disasters? Flooding Effects on Capital, Labour and Productivity Within European Firms

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Abstract

This paper examines the impact of floods on the firms’ capital accumulation, employment growth and productivity by using a difference-in-difference (DID) approach and considering the firms’ asset structure. We find evidence that, in the short run, companies in regions hit by a flood show on average higher growth of total assets and employment than firms in regions unaffected by flooding. The positive effect prevails for companies with larger shares of intangible assets. Regarding the firms’ productivity a negative flood effect is observable which declines with an increasing share of intangible assets.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstrasse 15, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Andrea M. Leiter & Harald Oberhofer

  2. Department of Public Finance, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstrasse 15, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Paul A. Raschky

  3. alpS, Center for Natural Hazard Management, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Paul A. Raschky

Authors
  1. Andrea M. Leiter
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  2. Harald Oberhofer
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  3. Paul A. Raschky
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Correspondence to Paul A. Raschky.

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Leiter, A.M., Oberhofer, H. & Raschky, P.A. Creative Disasters? Flooding Effects on Capital, Labour and Productivity Within European Firms. Environ Resource Econ 43, 333–350 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-009-9273-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-009-9273-9

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