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The Impact of Natural Disasters on Individuals’ Choice Between Economic Growth and Environmental Protection: Empirical Evidence from the World Values Survey

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Book cover Behavioural Economics of Climate Change

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Climate Studies ((BRIEFSCLIMATE))

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Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the effect of natural disasters on individuals’ choice between economic growth and environmental protection. Combining the 2010–2014 wave of the World Values Survey with data on natural disasters from the International Disaster Database, the empirical results provide evidence that respondents from the high-income sub-sample who were affected by natural disasters are more likely to prefer economic growth. However, natural disasters increase the impact of environmental values on the choice between environmental protection and economic growth. As for the low-income sub-sample, natural disasters have no effect on either the choice between economic growth and environmental protection or the relationship between environmental values and pro-environmental choice. This empirical result suggests that individuals in the low-income sub-sample might not causally attribute their experience of extreme weather events to climate change.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Low-income sub-sample: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ecuador, Ghana, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Yemen.

    High-income sub-sample: Australia, Chile, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United States, Uruguay.

  2. 2.

    I choose a probit rather than logit model because an interpretation of effects as changes in the probability in a probit regression is more convenient when compared to a logit model where effects are interpreted in terms of odds ratios.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Economics, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

    Vladimir Udalov

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  1. Vladimir Udalov
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Udalov, V. (2019). The Impact of Natural Disasters on Individuals’ Choice Between Economic Growth and Environmental Protection: Empirical Evidence from the World Values Survey. In: Behavioural Economics of Climate Change. SpringerBriefs in Climate Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03532-7_3

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