Impact of Natural Disaster Exposure on Prosocial Preferences and Public Goods Provision: Evidence from the Solomon Islands

<p>Natural disaster exposure can impact prosocial preferences, which indicate the level of social capital, as well as create a shift in investments from public to private goods. Both are important mechanisms to study in order to create optimal climate change adaptation policies. This study evaluates the impact of natural disaster exposure on prosocial preferences and public goods provision in the evaluated communities. The data used in this research comes from a process evaluation that was carried out in the Solomon Islands on the Rural Development Program (RDP) and a Structured Community Activity (SCA) experiment, which took place in 80 villages where 20 people in each village were given money and had to decide how much to keep or contribute towards a community good. There is no significant relationship between disaster exposure and prosocial preferences, yet exposure to a natural disaster in the past year is found to significantly decrease contribution amounts towards public goods in the SCA. A theoretical model of public goods provision is used to explain how experiencing a shock increases the private return from keeping the money, and thereby, decreases the amount contributed towards public goods.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Belfor, Heather

Contributors dc:contributor

• Yaniv Stopnitzky
• Alessandra Cassar

• Natural Disaster Exposure
• Prosocial Preferences
• Provision of Public Goods
• Behavioral Economics
• Growth and Development
• Other Economics

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/83

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.usfca.edu:thes-1090