Natural disasters and spatial heterogeneity in damages: the birth, life and death of manufacturing plants
以1995年神户地震为自然实验，利用地理编码的工厂位置和建筑级调查数据，发现建筑损害显著增加工厂倒闭风险且影响持续7年，受损后退出的是低生产率工厂，而幸存工厂生产率暂时提升，受损严重地区新工厂增多。
In this paper, we use the 1995 Kobe earthquake as a natural experiment to examine the impact of a large exogenous physical shock on local economic activity. For the first time we are able to control for local spatial heterogeneity in the damage caused by a natural disaster using geo-coded plant location and unique building-level surveys. In a survival analysis of manufacturing plants, our results show that building-level damage significantly affects a plant's likelihood of failure and this effect persists for up to 7 years. Further analysis demonstrates that the plants most likely to exit as a result of earthquake damage are the least productive which is suggestive of a cleansing effect as the average productivity rate of the remaining plants increases. We also find that continuing plants experience a temporary increase in productivity following the earthquake consistent with a 'build back better' effect. In terms of local regeneration our results indicate that plant births increase in areas with more severe damage consistent with redevelopment plans for Kobe.