Short and Long Run Effects of Earthquakes on Farm Businesses in Indonesia

This paper studies the impact of earthquakes on farm business assets in rural Indonesia. Using a panel fixed effects model, we evaluate if the negative consequences of earthquakes extend beyond the immediate event into the medium and long-term. Our results suggest that rural households were able to recover in the medium -run, and even exhibit welfare gains in the long-run. Productive assets in farm businesses were on average reconstituted and even increased in the medium-run. Thus, reconstruction strategies after large earthquakes seem to provide incentives to small farm business holders to reconstitute and increase their investments.