Natural disasters have caused, and continue to cause, a significant amount of economic costs. The costs of disasters are often, and to a large extent, shouldered by governments, especially in economies where private insurance markets are not well developed. Governments are asked to provide financing...

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Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Gamper, Catherine (Author)
Other Authors:	Signer, Benedikt (Contributor), Alton, Luis (Contributor), Petrie, Murray (Contributor)
Format:	Electronic eBook
Language:	English
Published:	Paris OECD Publishing 2017
Series:	OECD Working Papers on Public Governance no.27
Subjects:	Governance
Online Access:	DE-862 DE-863
Summary:	Natural disasters have caused, and continue to cause, a significant amount of economic costs. The costs of disasters are often, and to a large extent, shouldered by governments, especially in economies where private insurance markets are not well developed. Governments are asked to provide financing for explicit commitments made prior to a disaster, and are often under pressure to make payments for which no such commitments were made earlier. Ex-post costs to governments take the form of contingent liabilities within national budgeting and government balance sheet frameworks. Disasters can thereby cause both downside risks to government revenue as well as to expenditure. There is little evidence, and hence limited policy advice, on how disaster-related contingent liabilities are managed by governments. This paper sets out to clarify the concept of contingent liabilities and the channels through which they can impact government balance sheets, including fiscal risks. It provides a framework for identifying and quantifying disaster-related contingent liabilities with a view to inform country case studies for comparative policy analysis.
Physical Description:	1 Online-Ressource (35 Seiten)