Ct. West et Dg. Lenze, MODELING THE REGIONAL IMPACT OF NATURAL DISASTER AND RECOVERY - A GENERAL FRAMEWORK AND AN APPLICATION TO HURRICANE-ANDREW, International regional science review, 17(2), 1994, pp. 121-150
Two common features of natural disasters are intense regional impact a
nd the call immediately after the event to estimate the economic impac
t of recovery and reconstruction. The broad purpose of this paper is t
o help fill the gap in the regional science literature that addresses
this issue. Initially, the impact estimation problem is presented conc
eptually. Using a general regional model schematic, direct disaster im
pacts on exogenous variables, endogenous variables, and model linkages
are identified. Next, the conceptual problem is adapted for practical
application. This translation has two aspects: (1) modifying the dire
ct impacts for a specific model (common variants from the schematic ar
e considered) and (2) estimating those impacts from available data. On
e component of the latter identifies primary sources of information ty
pically available at the time of a natural disaster and indicates how
secondary data may be used to complement, cross-check, and expand thos
e data. A second component identifies areas of no information or high
uncertainty and discusses treatment of that information gap in empiric
al analysis. A final section applies the research to the problem of es
timating the impact of Hurricane Andrew on the economy of Florida.