Do Long-Run Disasters Promote Human Capital in China? -The Impact of 500 Years of Natural Disasters on County-Level Human-Capital Accumulation

• Published in: International journal of environmental research and public health Vol. 17; no. 20; p. 7422
• Main Authors: Zhang, Zhidi, Ruan, Jianqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 12.10.2020; MDPI
• Subjects: Accumulation; Bioaccumulation; Capital stock; China; Chinese culture; Datasets; Disasters; Drought; Education; Employment; Families & family life; Female; Floods; Growth models; Human capital; Humans; Investments; Male; Natural Disasters; Observatories; Productivity; Social Capital; China; long-run disasters; human capital; quantified history; drought; flood
• ISSN: 1660-4601; 1661-7827; 1660-4601
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17207422

Is there a relationship between the frequency of regional natural disasters and long-term human-capital accumulation? This article investigates the long-run causality between natural calamities and human-capital accumulation with macro and micro data. Empirical cross-county analysis demonstrates that higher frequencies of natural calamities are correlated with higher rates of human-capital accumulation. Specifically, on the basis of empirical data of the fifth census in 2000 and China's Labor-Force Dynamics Survey in 2012, this paper exploits the two databases to infer that the high disaster frequency in the years of 1500-2000 was likely to increase regional human-capital accumulation on district level. High natural-calamity frequency reduces the expected rate of returning to physical capital, which also serves to increase human-capital. Thus, experiencing with natural disasters would influence human's preference to human-capital investment instead of physical capital.