This chapter focuses on the impacts of natural phenomena such as earthquakes and hurricanes or typhoons in terms of fatalities and injuries. In particular, it frames such impacts in the context of human insecurity. Through a comparison of outcomes associated to natural events in developed and developing countries, the document puts forth the notion that developed countries are finding ways to e...

The most common cause of heat fatalities is environmental exposure during heat waves. Deserts of the southwestern USA are known for temperatures that exceed 32 degrees C for 30 days or more; yet, heat-related fatalities are rare among residents of the region. We compiled data from the National Weather Service and the Office of the Medical Examiner in order to determine the relationship between ...

This paper re-examines the effectiveness of Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) and Administrative License Revocation (ALR) laws in reducing traffic fatalities. Using difference-in-differences estimators of U.S. state-level data with standard errors corrected for autocorrelation, we find no evidence that lowering BAC limits to 0.08 grams/decaliter has reduced fatality rates, either in total or in alcoh...

Coal mining is a dangerous occupation where costly fatalities and disasters may increase future accident costs. We use occurrences of deaths as shocks that affect the tradeoff between mineral output and safety. We find that government inspections and penalties increase after fatalities, and less-severe accident rates decrease by 10%. For mines in a disaster-affected state, less-severe accident ...