A Longitudinal Analysis of FEMA-Declared Natural Disasters, Labor Outcomes, and Migration

Abstract

This paper leverages nearly 20 years of the Current Population Survey (CPS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) data to investigate the relationship between FEMA-declared natural disasters and labor outcomes (wage, labor force participation, work hours, employment) as well as county-level migration. As a paper studying the effects of an exogenous shock on labor outcomes, investigating a phenomenon that in the present age has become even more commonplace, and the only known individual-level U.S. analysis of natural disasters on micro decisions, it makes a contribution to the economic literature on longitudinal studies, catastrophic occurrences, and individual level decision- making. It discovers a small but significant relationship between the outcome variables and the response variables, inverse for labor force participation and weekly work hours, and positive for hourly wage and migration probability. Further exploring heterogeneous effects across race, gender, and age, the analysis concludes with recommendations for further study of such issues.