Resource information
This paper examines the impacts of
natural disasters on schooling investments with special
focus on the roles of ex-ante actions and ex-post responses
using panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi. The
importance of ex-ante actions depends on disaster risks and
the likelihood of public assistance, which potentially
creates substitution between the two actions. The findings
show that higher future probabilities of disasters increase
the likelihood of holding more human capital and/or
livestock relative to land, and this asset-portfolio effect
is significant in disaster prone areas. The empirical
results support the roles of both ex-ante and ex-post
responses (public assistance) in coping with disasters, but
also show interesting variations across countries. In
Ethiopia, public assistance plays a more important role than
ex-ante actions to mitigate the impact of shocks on child
schooling. In contrast, households in Malawi rely more on
private ex-ante actions than public assistance. The
Bangladesh example shows active roles of both ex-ante and
ex-post actions. These observations are consistent with the
finding on the relationship between ex-ante actions and
disaster risks. The results also show that among ex-ante
actions, human capital accumulated in the household prior to
disasters helps mitigate the negative effects of disasters
in both the short and long runs.
