Natural disasters and university enrolment: Evidence from L’Aquila earthquake

Although there are several studies looking at the effect of natural disasters on economic growth, less attention has been dedicated to their impact on educational outcomes, especially in more developed countries. We use the synthetic control method to examine how the L’Aquila earthquake affected subsequent enrolment at the local university. This issue has wide economic implications as the University of L’Aquila made a large contribution to the local economy before the earthquake. Our results indicate that the earthquake had no statistically significant effect on first-year enrolment at the University of L’Aquila in the three academic years after the disaster. This natural disaster, however, caused a compositional change in the first-year student population, with a substantial increase in the number of students aged 21 or above. This is likely to have been driven by post-disaster measures adopted in order to mitigate the expected negative effects on enrolment triggered by the earthquake.

Improving health and wellbeing independently of GDP: dividends of greener and prosoical economies

Increases in gross domestic product (GDP) beyond a threshold of basic needs do not lead to further increases in well-being. An explanation is that material consumption (MC) also results in negative health externalities. We assess how these externalities influence six factors critical for well-being: (i) healthy food; (ii) active body; (iii) healthy mind; (iv) community links; (v) contact with nature; and (vi) attachment to possessions. If environmentally sustainable consumption (ESC) were increasingly substituted for MC, thus improving well-being and stocks of natural and social capital, and sustainable behaviours involving non-material consumption (SBs-NMC) became more prevalent, then well-being would increase regardless of levels of GDP. In the UK, the individualised annual health costs of negative consumption externalities (NCEs) currently amount to £62 billion for the National Health Service, and £184 billion for the economy (for mental ill-health, dementia, obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes, loneliness and cardiovascular disease). A dividend is available if substitution by ESC and SBs-NMC could limit the prevalence of these conditions.