Bangladesh: disaster and public finance. Working paper series 6

The overall study seeks to increase understanding of the wider economic and financial impacts of natural
disasters, factors determining the vulnerability of hazard-prone economies, opportunities for mitigation and factors inhibiting their adoption. It builds on previous research by the primary investigators and related evaluations in this area, including drought in sub-Saharan Africa, and disasters in Asia and the Pacific and Caribbean regions (Benson and Clay, 1998; Benson, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c; Clay and others, 1995; Clay and others, 1999). The study entails a state-of-the-art review and three country studies. The final synthesis report will draw together the findings from the case studies with those from the researchers’ previous studies and other relevant investigations. The study findings are intended to contribute towards the development of guidelines on the assessment of natural hazard vulnerability from an economic perspective. There are considerable methodological difficulties in isolating the economic impacts of natural disasters from other internal and external factors. The study adopts and seeks to refine further an eclectic approach used in previous studies by the authors, involving a mixture of quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine the
economic impacts of natural hazards (Benson and Clay, 1998; Benson, 1997a). The quantitative aspect is partial, involving a combination of regression analysis, the use of charts to examine movement around trends, and comparisons of `before-and-after' impacts of disasters and of forecast and actual performance. A qualitative political economic analysis is also undertaken to place findings within the economic and social policy context of each case study country.