The Impact of Natural Disasters on Businesses and Consumers

该项目使用2017年德克萨斯州哈维飓风后收集的详细数据，包括企业关闭、信用卡购买、企业恢复援助数据和创新模型，研究自然灾害对企业和消费者福利的影响。它还研究了自然灾害发生后应如何分配对企业的公共援助，以尽量减少这些灾害对企业和消费者的影响。该研究建立了一个消费者选择和企业重新进入的模型，以回答三个问题：飓风后消费者福利损失有多大，援助促进企业重新进入的效果如何，以及分配援助以帮助企业从灾难中恢复的最佳方式是什么。创新的研究设计将使研究人员能够有效地回答这些问题。这项研究的结果将指导政策制定者制定灾害响应和恢复能力，以加强当地经济，减轻自然灾害的不利影响以及气候变化的后果，并帮助美国成为自然灾害后商业恢复政策的全球领导者。该研究项目结合了消费者行为、洪水和企业关闭等方面的细粒度数据，对消费者偏好进行建模和估计，从而使pi能够量化企业关闭造成的福利损失。该项目的这一部分的核心是开发和估计离散选择模型，该模型允许pi恢复消费者福利损失。然后，该项目开发了一个企业重新进入决策的模型，以估计政府援助帮助企业重新进入的有效性，并衡量社区和行业之间经济影响的异质性。最后，pi使用这些估计来设计和评估援助分配机制，该机制分配商业援助以最大限度地减少企业退出造成的消费者福利损失。这项研究的结果将为制定灾害应对和恢复政策提供指导，以加强当地经济，减轻自然灾害和气候变化的不利后果，并帮助美国成为自然灾害后商业恢复政策的全球领导者。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project uses detailed data collected in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas in 2017 business closures, credit card purchases, business recovery aid data, and innovative modelling to study the effects of natural disasters on businesses and consumer welfare. It also studies how public aid to businesses after a natural disaster should be allocated to minimize the impact of these disasters on businesses and consumers. The research develops a model of consumer choice and firm re-entry to answer three questions: how large consumer welfare losses after the hurricane were, how effective was aid facilitating business re-entry, and what is the optimal way of allocating aid to help businesses recover from disaster. The innovative research design will allow the researchers to answer these questions effectively. The results of this research will guide policymakers in developing disaster response and resilience efforts to strengthen local economies and to mitigate the adverse effects of natural disasters as well as consequences of climate change and help establish the US as a global leader in business recovery policies after a natural disaster.This research project combines granular data on consumer behavior, flooding, and business closures to model and estimate consumer preferences that allows the PIs to quantify welfare losses due to business closures. At the heart of this part of the project is the development and estimation of a discrete choice model that allows the PIs to recover consumer welfare losses. The project then develops a model of firm re-entry decisions to estimate the effectiveness of government aid to help business re-entry, as well as measure heterogeneity in economic impacts across neighborhoods and industries. Finally, the PIs use these estimates to design and evaluate an aid allocation mechanism that distributes business aid to minimize consumer welfare loss from business exit. The results of this research will provide guidance in developing disaster response and resilience policies to strengthen local economies and mitigate the adverse consequences of natural disasters and climate change as well as help establish the US as a global leader in business recovery policies after a natural disaster.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.