Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
7470934 International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2018 45 Pages PDF
Abstract
This paper presents two opposite perspectives on the labor market in the aftermath of a disaster. The first posits a production sector that is non-tradeable and a labor market with total mobility. This is modeled using agent based simulation. The second presents a production sector that is fully tradeable and a labor market that is perfectly immobile. This is modeled using traditional micro-economic modeling and numerical simulation. Outcomes from the two approaches are compared. In the no-disaster case, participation rates and wages under both approaches settle down to a low-level equilibrium albeit at different rates. In the case of a disaster, outcomes are very different. Under the agent based model labor market mobility results in solutions being found outside the area. In the micro-economic approach workers absorb the recovery process within the area readjusting their demand for labor. When population movement is introduced the system reorganizes at a new equilibrium. The results highlight first, the importance of labor mobility and flexibility and second, the divergent absorption costs in determining the long-term outcomes of a disaster.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Earth and Planetary Sciences Geophysics
Authors
, ,