Economics lecture to address disaster relief on Wednesday

By Josh Holderbaum
Western Herald

Weeks after heavy rains flooded parts of Kalamazoo, natural disasters are the focus of the 45th Annual Werner Sichel Seminar Series, “The Economics of Natural and Unnatural Disasters,” presented by the department of economics.

The upcoming presentation, “Hurricane Recovery: Responsibility and Financing,” will be held from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 29 in 3508 Knauss Hall. Presenting will be Jamie Kruse, Ph. D., director of the Center for Natural Hazards Research and economics professor at East Carolina University.

“It’s believed to be the longest running seminar series on campus,” William Kern, Ph. D., chair of the economics department, said. “It was the brainchild of Werner Sichel, the former chair of the department [of economics] and it was named for him after his retirement. Each year we select a different national topic and bring in speakers to discuss aspects of that topic.”

Although Kern was not the original director of the series, once he saw this year’s promising topic, he requested to take charge.

“The idea for the series came from [assistant professor] Christine Moser,” Kern said, “but with all the other work she had, she couldn’t devote enough time to it. I knew it was a pretty live topic, so I agreed to do the legwork for her if she would let me take over.”

Kruse’s presentation comes after the first lecture of the series, “At War with the Weather: Managing-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes” by Howard Kunreuther, Ph.D.,  the Cecilia Yen Koo Professor of Decision Sciences and Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business Oct. 1.

“Disaster recovery is a growing field in economics,” Kern said. “Our previous speaker, Dr. Kunreuther, is considered one of the first founding fathers in the area, and Dr. Kruse is very contemporary in the field. It’s very interesting because you have to combine geology and natural scientists with the economic aspects of it.”

Kruse’s lecture will focus on the most important aspects of natural disasters, responsibility and financing, Kern said.

“The biggest thing is the question of responsibility and financing,” Kern said. “Will individuals or government handle the burden? Individuals handle it through private insurance, but if something big happens those companies can be out a lot of money. The idea has been debated here for years for a catastrophic fund. If you bring in the government that can help things, but as we know the government is not known to pay attention that much,” he added.

Kern hopes the lecture will open the eyes of unsuspecting citizens.

“People have a very serious tendency to underestimate how likely it is that they will be affected by a natural disaster,” Kern said. “While we’re inclined as a country to let people make their own decisions, they’re inaccurately assessing the risk. Economists have known about this for a long time.”

For more information on the series, contact Kern at 387-5554 or william.kern@wmich.edu.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Oct 27 2008. Filed under Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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