Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Although the risks of flooding demand responses by communities and societies, there are also many cost-effective actions that individuals can take. The authors examine two potential determinants of such adoption: individual predisposition to act and the impact of decision aids that emphasize the risk, the actions, both, or neither (control). Respondents are a representative sample (N = 1201) of individuals in the areas most heavily affected by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The authors find that, in the overall sample, seeing protective actions coupled with risk information or alone produced higher rates of individuals reporting that they intended to take action preparing for future storms, compared to a control group receiving no additional information. Moreover, that occurred despite the aids reducing their perceptions of risk. The authors find that individuals who reported having taken previous action are more responsive to decision aid messages with the exception of the combined message (risk and protective actions)—which had a positive effect on those who had not acted previously, but a negative effect on those who had. These results suggest that, in communities that already are aware of their flood risks, the critical need is for authoritative, comprehensible information regarding the most feasible and cost-effective protective actions that they can take. Providing such information requires analysis to determine which actions qualify and a design process that incorporates user feedback to ensure that recommendations are easily understood and credible.

Sea level rise will cause spatial shifts in economic activity over the next 200 years. Using a spatially disaggregated, dynamic model of the world economy, this paper estimates the consequences of probabilistic projections of local sea level changes. Under an intermediate scenario of greenhouse gas emissions, permanent flooding is projected to reduce global real GDP by 0.19 percent in present value terms. By the year 2200, a projected 1.46 percent of the population will be displaced. Losses in coastal localities are much larger. When ignoring the dynamic response of investment and migration, the loss in real GDP in 2200 increases from 0.11 percent to 4.5 percent. (JEL E23, F01, Q54, Q56) ; Desmet and Rossi- Hansberg acknowledge the support and hospitality of PERC while doing part of this research. Kopp, Kulp, and Strauss were supported in part by US National Science Foundation grant ICER- 1663807 and by National Aeronautics and Space Administration grant 80NSSC17K0698. Nagy acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Program for Centers of Excellence in R&D (SEV- 2015-0563) and the Juan de la Cierva Grant (FJCI- 2017- 34728); and from the Government of Catalonia, through CERCA and SGR Program (2017-SGR-1393). Oppenheimer acknowledges support from US National Science Foundation Award Number 1520683.