[Final]Can Natural Disaster Ever be Good to Economy?

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Hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires … America and the world have been entangled by natural disasters recently. The natural disasters never could be considered as a positive force because of the destruction and death the bring. However, disasters also tend to make reconstruction the primary task for the government, making it easier for public money to flow into hard-hit regions. Economically, in what case would natural disasters be a boost to the regional economics? It depends the previous economic status of the affected region and the immediate assistance efficiency from the government.

In Sichuan, China, where a magnitude 8 earthquake took place in 2008, is an example how the local economy can recover and even expand during the post-disaster reconstruction. Poor infrastructure exacerbated the damage, leading to an official death toll of 87,150 and 4.8 million people homeless, according to the BBC News. The economic loss was estimated at $191 billion, the second highest in absolute number in history, according to 2013 CATDAT Damaging Earthquake Database. The noteworthy part was that the central counties in 2008 Sichuan earthquake, WenChuan and Ya’an, were neither a raw material production base nor manufacturing zone. Actually, these counties were poor. Thus, the earthquake did not hurt the Chinese exports or GDP to any great degree.

The rebuilding efforts cost the Chinese government almost $150 billion, equivalent to a fifth of its entire tax revenues for a single year, according to the state media of China in 2008. Quickly after the earthquake happened, the National Development and Reform Commission of China announced a reconstruction plan that “envisages buildings 169 hospitals and 4,432 primary and middle schools to replace collapsed structures. Another 2,600 schools that remained standing will be strengthened. More than 3 million homeless rural families will get new houses and 860,000 apartments in the city will be built.”

Relying on such tremendous capital investment, the regional economy of Sichuan was able to recover in an amazing speed. Here is the chart associated with the Gross Regional Product(GRP) of Sichuan from 1998 to 2010.The blue, yellow, and green line respectively indicate the GRP of Sichuan, of the hardest hit region of Sichuan in 2008 earthquake, of else of Sichuan, in the form of percent of Chinese GDP. The pinkish line represents the GRP per capital as ratio to Chinese GDP.

The graph tells that before the earthquake happened, the hardest hit region in Sichuan earthquake, which is composed of the ten serious-damaged counties, generated about 0.25% of Chinese GDP. Meanwhile, the Sichuan generated about 4.1% of Chinese total GDP.

By 2010, 2 years after the earthquake, the GRP of Sichuan and the GRP of non-central damage area of Sichuan both not only recovered but even had growth.

“The GRP level of the worst-hit area of Sichuan decreased by 35.4% in 2008 compared to the 2007 level. After three years of reconstruction, the region had still not returned to its pre-earthquake GRP level, but the GRP level of the rest of Sichuan experienced a boom in those three years because of the reconstruction demand stimulus,” according to a studies conducted by MOE Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster of the Beijing Normal University.

The GRP per capital in Sichuan had a huge growth; however, it is meaningless considering the tragic death tolls.

In a article published by China Daily , by 2012 when reconstruction basically completed, the Deputy-Governor of Sichuan Gan Lin said, Sichuan was the fastest growing of the major economic provinces in China. China Daily asserts “the quake zone has seen unprecedented changes.” Governor Gan said, during the past four years, Sichuan’s GDP doubled more than 2 trillion yuan ($317 billion), enabling its per capita GDP to surpass $4,000.

*A noteworthy point for the above statement is the “go west” strategy to increase inland development formulated by the State Council in 2000 also plays an significant factor to Sichuan’s growth.

“When something is destroyed you don’t necessarily rebuild the same thing that you had,” said Mark Skidmore, an economics professor at Michigan State University. “You might use updated technology, you might do things more efficiently.” With massive amount of national resources, “the disasters allow new and more efficient infrastructure to be built, forcing the transition to a sleeker, more productive economy in the long term, a New York Times article commented on the Sichuan Earthquake in July, 2008.

More practical and explicit reflection of the benefits from 2008 earthquake to Sichuan region comes from the 7.0 magnitude Sichuan earthquake in Ya’an. According to the BBC report, “none of the buildings built since the Sichuan earthquakes collapsed.” The quality of housing for sure has improved.

However, the previous economic condition of the hardest hit region in Sichuan earthquake facilitated the recovery session. A New York Times article wrote about one month after the earthquake, “only 1 percent of China’s population lives in the hardest hit quake-affected area, in northern Sichuan Province. Those residents account for an even smaller share of China’s economic output, because many of them are impoverished farmers.” In other words, these areas might not receive this much of national investment or resources within short period of time.

The economic affects brought by Northridge earthquake in 1994 was a different story. That 6.7 magnitude quake struck an area of 2,192 square miles in the San Fernando Valley, causing 57 people killed and 11,800 injuries. It is still ranked by CNN Money as the most expensive earthquake in American history, costing $44 billion.

In the research “The Northridge Earthquake, USA and its Economic and Social Impacts” conducted by Professor William J Petak from University of Southern California and Research Fellow Shirin Elahi from University of Surrey explains the difficulty of reconstruction for Northridge area, “Northridge earthquake was a direct hit on an urban area and the scale of losses caused by the earthquake far exceeded expectations.”

Unlike regions in Sichuan, US has a large concentration of localised industries, such as the entertainment and aerospace industries in southern California, which was severely undermined by the earthquake, the research argues. Moreover, unlike most people lived in Sichuan’s affected regions were rural farmers, San Fernando Valley supports half of the city of Los Angeles’ population. “Approximately 48% of the population were homeowners – middle class and therefore not obviously insecure- yet many proved to be vulnerable to the hazard,” the Northridge Earthquake research claims.

Another important factor that determines the success of reconstruction after catastrophe is how effective and efficient the state or the federal government respond to the recovery assistance. The highly-centralized government system allowed the Chinese government to respond Sichuan Earthquake immediately, ordering national assistance and resources investment. Kevin L. Kliesen, Economist from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis wrote in his article “The Economics of Natural Disaster,” explains the difference in American government, “although emergency funds for food and shelter are usually disbursed immediately by Presidential directive, monies for longer-term rebuilding efforts are often appropriated by Congress with a substantial lag.” The research “The Northridge Earthquake, USA and its Economic and Social Impacts” criticizes the reaction from the government during the Northridge Earthquake. The research attacks the lack of “a desire for a recovery to reproduce a return to normalcy, and achieve the status quo of the socio-economic and built environment prior to the earthquake.” Many federal, state and local officials were not willing to sacrifice their own political, economic, social or environmental agenda to cooperate to help the affected regions, the research asserts. They were at best willing to make adjustment.

An extreme case is the Haiti’s response to earthquake. The Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development Martin Neil Baily wrote in an article for Brookings that Haiti, which is too poor to manage the immediate recover after hurricane, has to wait international aid to get basic rebuilding, leaving alone economic growth. It is so difficult for Haiti to recover.

The study of economy in disasters is not new. In 1969, Douglas Dacy and Howard Kunreuther, two young analysts at the Institute for Defense Analyses, published a book called “The Economics of Natural Disasters.”  It was probably one of the first attempts to measure the economic influence of catastrophe. The book argues that the dreadful Alaska earthquake of 1964 helped the Alaska economy by garnering government loans and grants for rebuilding.

“We got a lot of hate mail for that finding,” said Kunreuther, now a professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

The theory of economic boom from disasters also received criticism.“Over any reasonably relevant period of time, society is not made wealthier by destroying resources,” Donald Boudreaux, an economics professor at George Mason University, said. If it were, “Beirut should be one of the wealthiest places in the world.” Economist Frédéric Bastiat labeled the disastrous economy theory as “the broken window fallacy” in his article “What is Seen and What is not Seen.” Bastiat compares the disaster reconstruction to fix a broken window. It costs $100 dollar to fix a window. The repairman and window shops got money because the window owner pays it. In the reconstruction case, the money comes from tax payers or just money printers. The natural disaster could be an economic boost to a region, but it always is an economic downturn for the whole nation.

In conclusion, the theory model of disastrous benefits for economy should be viewed as that the areas that would not receive national resources or investment during the normal time becomes privileged after suffering catastrophe. It also gives these areas more opportunity and capital to develop during the reconstruction period. The previous economic condition of the affected region and the efficiency of government assistance determine the success of the recovery. Despite to the regional growth, we should never be positive toward disasters because it never generates economy but merely redirects capital and resources to recover a definite loss of wealth.

Grameen Bank and Microfinance: Debates and Controversies

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Microfinance was born in the early 1980s when an economist named Muhammad Yunus came across women in poverty from the villages of Bangladesh. In face of the widespread famine and poverty, some of these women and their families were controlled by loan sharks, and had no other resource to turn to because traditional banks considered them not creditworthy. Muhammad Yunus repaid the women’s debt and helped them get loans from the bank as a guarantor. Soon, working with the poor made him realize that lending money to the disadvantaged is a great business opportunity: they were trustworthy, hardworking people. He then created Grameen Bank, what we consider a pioneering model of social enterprise, to help break the cycle of poverty.

Muhammad Yunus has received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and a US Congressional Gold Medal in 2010, among many other prizes, as recognition of his contributions to the fight against global poverty. Despite the approbation Yunus has received, the concept of microfinance has been the subject of many debates and controversies. Some critics question whether microfinance is truly an effective way to lift the poor out of poverty. Others make the claim that instead of helping the poor, microfinance institutions (MFIs) make their clients poorer, as they become victims of a vicious spiral of over-indebtedness. It is important for us to understand this debate to keep us attentive to ensuring that we remain on the right track as we’re trying to fight global poverty. However, in order to understand the debate and the truth about microfinance, we need to first understand how the model works.

For over three decades, the Grameen Bank has succeeded in reaching the poor, while traditional banks ignore this population. Grameen bank established branches and sent representatives into remote areas of developing countries, and took on many clients there. The reason why Grameen was able to do that is that borrowers do not need collateral to get a loan. This policy allows access for the disadvantaged to get loans more easily to support their small businesses and livelihood. These loans are typically made in very small amounts, averaging at $200 with an interest rate below 20%, hence the “micro” in microfinance. Grameen Bank is also different from traditional banks in that it has a financially self-reliant model. In an article published in The Round Table, Yunus explained his bank’s business model: “Grameen has funded 90 percent of its loans with interest income and deposits collected, aligning the interests of its new borrowers and depositor-shareholders since 1995.” Essentially, the bank encourages all borrowers to become savers, so that their local capital can be converted into new loans to others.

In addition to the no-collateral borrowing system, another fascinating fact about Grameen Bank’s operation is that 97% of the borrowers are women. It is a brilliant business strategy because women statistically have a much higher loan repayment rate than male, for that women tend to make more conservative investments. Yunus have recognized this, and made women his target client. In an interview with The Guardian, Yunus said that he expanded the program into the US and established 19 branches in 11 cities, including eight in New York. “We have nearly 100,000 borrowers there now and 100% women. Not a single man.”

Yunus’s decision to give microloans to women isn’t just good for business, it accomplishes so much more. In rural Bangladesh, many women are essentially confined to their husband’s family compound, and are in a rather powerless position both socially and economically. Girls are usually married by 16, sometimes as young as 11. Most of the time, there are no medical professionals in attendance when women give birth. Women are expected to keep their eyes down and their voice soft, even at home. It is not considered proper for women to go to the market, or to be seen by men outside their family. Microfinance serves and empowers these women, who are often overlooked in society by giving them access to a small amount of capital so that they can buy seeds, chickens or a cow and start and grow their small businesses. Often, this allows them to earn enough to provide three meals a day instead of two for their family and their children, of whom 40% are malnourished. It also gave them a bit of cash to pay for medicines if a family member got sick.

The main criticism microfinance face is that borrowers may face abusive interest rates and end up become overwhelmed by their debt. While some institutions like BRAC have models similar to Grameen and provide services with the goal to combat poverty, other banks that label themselves as MFIs use predatory lending and collection practices. These companies charge up to 200% for interest, and some of them employ collection methods so harsh that they had driven some borrowers to commit suicide. According to an article from The Atlantic, critics often use SKS Microfinance as an example to argue that microfinance is a plot to steal from the poor and give to the rich. The company held a public IPO in 2010 that made millions for its founder, ex-McKinsey-consultant Vikram Akula. Another example is Banco Compartamos, a Mexican bank that Compartamos charges an annual percentage rate in the range of 75-100%, and raised nearly half a billion dollars in its IPO.

However, these banks do not fit the microfinance model Yunus proposed. In fact, Yunus himself is outraged by this kind of microfinance companies that make huge profits off of the backs of the very poor. He blasted Compartamos, saying, “microfinance was created to fight the money lender, not to become the money lender.” The majority are still small or very small entities that are working hard to achieve financial self-sustainability. A BYU study found that among the 148 MFIs they interviewed, only 57 are self-sufficient, and fewer report profits. The majority of the MFIs around the world are not influenced by the predatory model mentioned above, and are operating as non-profits. For-profit MFIs that uses abusive interest rates are only a small fraction of the microfinance market, and should be a reason to motivate more effort put into regulation, instead of being used to denounce microfinance as a whole.

Moreover, Aneel Karnani, a professor of strategy in University of Michigan comma published an article in Stanford Social Innovation Review, in which he argues that microfinance is not an efficient way to alleviate poverty. He claims that instead of microfinance, best way to eradicate poverty is to create jobs and to increase worker productivity. Karnani points out that most microfinance clients are not “micro-entrepreneurs” by choice, and that these borrowers would “gladly take a factory job at reasonable wages if it were available.” Therefore, he believes by people are strying away from the real effective way to fix the economy. It is true that on a macroeconomic scale, most people agree that employment is the fundamental link to poverty reduction.

However, the problem that MFI clients face in these rural areas of Bangladesh is precisely the limited opportunities for steady employment at reasonable wages. Within the status quo, microfinance is still the best opportunity for people who seek temporary financial relive and are hoping to kick start their small business. The story of Manjira who, years before, was living in extreme poverty in Bangladesh, illustrates the impact a Grameen loan can have. She had lost a young son to a sudden illness. She told the reporter at New York Times that her most painful memory was the day before her son died. He asked her for an ice cream that cost one taka (about 2 cents), but she didn’t have the money to give him that. A few years later, she managed to get a small loan through Grameen, and had become a successful seamstress. Now, she is one of the board members of Grameen Bank, along with three government representatives and eight other village women elected by the bank’s more than 8 million members.

Over the years, many other women like Manjira have found means to provide for themselves and their family with the help of microloans. As women build up their business, overall consumption increases and its benefits also extend outward to the entire community, including those who are participating in the program. However, it is important to keep in mind that microfinance does not automatically empower women. Governments and international organizations in developing nations should tighten regulation over microfinance institutions and be sensitive to the country-specific and cultural factors that play a key role in determining how microfinance interacts with the local community.