The effects of earthquake exposure on preparedness in the short and long term: a difference-in-differences estimation

Emergency support is often delayed after a disaster. Despite the importance of being prepared to deal with the immediate aftermath of disasters, not everyone prepares effectively. While exposure to disasters improves people’s preparedness in the short term, it is yet to be determined whether this improvement is long lasting. In this paper, we use a difference-in-differences method to estimate the causal effects of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes on people’s preparedness in the short-term (1 month after the second earthquake) and long-term (up to 25 months after the second earthquake). Our results show that people who experienced the earthquakes increase their preparedness by 0.67 standard deviations in the short term. This impact stays positive, but declines to 0.42 standard deviations in the long term.