REPLICATION STUDY: Toya and Skidmore (Economics Letters, 2007)

Type of content
Discussion / Working Papers
Publisher's DOI/URI
Thesis discipline
Degree name
Publisher
University of Canterbury. Department of Economics and Finance
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
Date
2013
Authors
Reed, W. R.
Mercer, R.
Abstract

This study replicates the empirical findings of Toya and Skidmore (2007), hereinafter "TS", and performs a variety of robustness checks. We are able to exactly replicate the findings reported by TS. Our robustness checks consist of two parts. Firstly, we update TS's original data set, both with respect to variable values and years. We then address a number of estimation issues: (i) truncation bias, (ii) the effect of severe skewness in the disaster data, (iii) fixed effects, and (iv) the omission of a time trend. Our robustness checks produce two major results: We confirm TS's finding that income is negatively related to both fatalities and economic losses from disasters. In fact, we estimate coefficients that are substantially larger than TS. On the other hand, we find no evidence to indicate that the other economic development variables (educational attainment, size of government, economic openness, financial sector development) are statistically related to either fatalities or economic damages.

Description
WORKING PAPER No. 05/2013
Citation
Reed, W. R., Mercer, R. (2013) REPLICATION STUDY: Toya and Skidmore (Economics Letters, 2007). University of Canterbury.
Keywords
Economic development, Natural disasters, Replication study
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
Field of Research::14 - Economics::1402 - Applied Economics::140202 - Economic Development and Growth
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