The economic benefits of irreversible risk reduction by disaster prevention investment

Author

Yokomatsu, M. ; Kobayashi, K.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Civil Eng., Kyoto Univ., Japan

Volume

5

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

979

Abstract

Once serious disaster occurs, many victims may simultaneously lose their lives. One is always under disaster risks and is never free from them throughout one´s life. Among others, this study exclusively focuses upon two distinct features of fatal risks by disaster: backgroundness and irreversibility. The disaster prevention investment is the basic means to reduce the fatal risks that people may be killed in disaster. In the paper, a dynamic optimal consumption model with disaster risks is formulated to analyze how the consumer´s demands for composite goods and life insurance are modified by reduction of the fatal risks. The economic benefits of disaster prevention investment can be measured by investigating how the present value of the stream of utility that the representative consumer can derive from his/her life-long consumption plan, is influenced by change in the fatal risks

Keywords

behavioural sciences; cost-benefit analysis; disasters; insurance; investment; composite goods; consumer´s demands; disaster prevention investment; dynamic optimal consumption model; economic benefits; fatal risks; irreversible risk reduction; life insurance; life-long consumption plan; Accidents; Civil engineering; Decision making; Diseases; Environmental economics; Humans; Insurance; Investments; Risk analysis; Risk management;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 1999. IEEE SMC '99 Conference Proceedings. 1999 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Tokyo

ISSN

1062-922X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5731-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSMC.1999.815687

Filename

815687