Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 11 November 2020
You are invited to join the weekly Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 11 November 2020, from 13.15 to 14.45 pm. The seminar will be held via Zoom. Natalia Danzer (FU Berlin) will be talking about “The Impact of a Nuclear Catastrophe on Economic and Political Preferences – The Case of Chernobyl”.
Please find below the abstract:
This paper examines the long-term impact of the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl on the preferences and beliefs of the Ukrainian population. Exploiting plausibly exogenous geographic variation in radiation fallout and containment measures, we find that people who were more affected in 1986 display stronger risk aversion and higher discount rates in 2007. They save less, are less entrepreneurial, are much less inclined to support democratic political institutions and the market economy, and they engage less in political and civic activities. Ruling out physical health and risk perceptions as potential mechanisms, our analysis suggests that the impact of the disaster is psychologically mediated, which is also reflected in depressed wellbeing measures.