Political Ideology of Disaster Reduction: Does Innovation Matter?

The aim of this article is to study the effect of government ideology on natural disaster prevention in developing countries, taking into account the role of innovation. The study covers a sample of 91 developing countries over the period 1990 to 2020. The methodology used refers to binary choice models, since our dependent variable takes the value 1 if the country has experienced a natural disaster at a given date and 0 otherwise. We implement here a fixed effects logit model. Our results show that for all three declinations of government ideology (Right, Left and Centre) innovation tends to increase the probability of natural disasters in developing countries. This result is consistent with the alternative measure of innovation (total factor productivity) only for left-wing governments. We can suggest that the focus should be on policies to increase building standards and encourage sound innovation. Jel Codes : P26, Q54, Q55.