Introduction

It is often said that large magnitude natural events are just that, but to make disasters requires a human and social component. This practical explores some of those notions.

A recent paper by Jayasuriya and Burke investigated whether or not the proportion of women in parliaments affects economic growth. This is more than an academic matter: economic growth is said to create the robustness required of economies and societies to withstand the impact of natral perils.

The paper argues that countries with a greater proportion of women in parliament have had faster growing economies, and if the inference above is accurate, then those particular economies will be developing greater robustness to natural disasters. The paper identified middle eastern and Pacific nations as being amongst those with the greatest change yet to occur.

What to do for this practical
Download the paper at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2066266
The download button is on the middle right hand side.
Read the paper and answer the question on the question sheet.

Reference
Jayasuriya, D. & Burke, P.J. 2012. Female parliamentarians and economic growth: Evidence from a large panel. Discussion Paper 18, Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. 10 pp. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2066266
summarise in a paragraph the content of the Jayasuriya & Burke (2012) paper. Describe the relevance this paper might have for the understanding and mitigation of natural perils.