The long-run consequences of Chernobyl: Evidence on subjective well-being, mental health and welfare

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Danzer, Alexander M.; Danzer, Natalia
• 署名单位: IZA Institute Labor Economics; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of London; University College London; Leibniz Institut fur Ost und Sudosteuropaforschung; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.01.001
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 47-60
• 关键词: Chernobyl; Nuclear catastrophe; Externality; Subjective well-being; Mental health; DEPRESSION; Transfer dependency; welfare loss; natural experiment

摘要

This paper assesses the long-run toll taken by a large-scale technological disaster on welfare, well-being and mental health. We estimate the causal effect of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe after 20 years by linking geographic variation in radioactive fallout to respondents of a nationally representative survey in Ukraine according to their place of residence in 1986. We exclude individuals who were exposed to high levels of radiation about 4% of the population. Instead, we focus on the remaining majority of Ukrainians who received subclinical radiation doses; we find large and persistent psychological effects of this nuclear disaster. Affected individuals exhibit poorer subjective well-being, higher depression rates and lower subjective survival probabilities; they rely more on governmental transfers as source of subsistence. We estimate the aggregate annual welfare loss at 2-6% of Ukraine's GDP highlighting previously ignored externalities of large-scale catastrophes. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.