Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-9683-2605

Date Available

8-1-2024

Year of Publication

2024

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

College

Business and Economics

Department/School/Program

Economics

First Advisor

Dr. William Hoyt

Second Advisor

Dr. Lala Ma

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three chapters that study how natural disasters affect households and individuals. The first chapter examines how Kentucky’s housing market responds to changes in flood risk information. The second chapter looks at disproportionate drinking water non-compliance post-disaster. The third chapter studies the effect of flooding events and the national school meals program in Kentucky on education outcomes.

The first chapter examines Kentucky’s housing market response to changes in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) flood maps and how the responses differ depending on whether an area has been flooded recently. I use Zillow’s ZTRAX property transaction data and current and historical floodplain maps to estimate a hedonic property value model and to recover the price impact of residential properties that have experienced a change in their flood zone status. Importantly, I also allow for the price effect of a flood map change to depend on whether a property was recently affected by a flood event. I find that when properties are switched into flood zones in recently flooded areas, sale prices decrease by 5.2\% on average. In contrast, prices increase by 4.7\%, on average, when houses are mapped out of a flood zone. Understanding how housing markets respond to flooding events and flood risk can help regulators evaluate the effectiveness of programs aimed to adapt to increasing flood risk, such as disaster assistance programs and the National Flood Insurance Program, and can provide guidance on ways to improve these programs. This research provides evidence for policymakers to provide detailed and personalized information on flood risk to better serve the housing and insurance markets.

The second chapter analyzes drinking water quality at the intersection of race and socioeconomic status and whether the clean-up time is longer in more disadvantaged communities after a flooding event. We match Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) violations with county-level demographic and economic information from the U.S. Census. We find that larger minority groups and higher poverty rates are associated with extended non-compliance periods, and post-flooding clean-up times are longer for communities with higher poverty rates. The environmental justice literature has focused on the inequalities of racial and socioeconomic status concerning the application of environmental regulations and the inequitable recovery processes for vulnerable communities. These may help target under-performing systems that might benefit from assistance in achieving consistent compliance. Our results also suggest that attention to the distributional impact of regulatory actions should be incorporated into post-disaster recovery prioritization decisions.

The third chapter studies the effect of flooding events and the national school meals program in Kentucky on education outcomes. Literature has provided evidence of the importance of food security in the disaster recovery phase for children’s academic performance, and natural disasters pose significant challenges to the education system in affected regions. With the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE) school-level academic achievement scores and attendance records, I identify the student cohorts affected by flooding events. I find that affected students with free/reduced-price meals experienced smaller decreased test scores. Understanding what mechanisms the food assistance programs can affect education outcomes can shed light on potential pathways for implementing and improving programs that mitigate the adverse effects of natural disasters on education.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2024.312

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