Managing disaster-related contingent liabilities in public finance frameworks
- Catherine Gamper, Benedikt Signer, Luis Alton, Murray Petrie
- Jan 2017
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- International
Natural disasters have caused, and continue to cause, a significant amount of economic costs. The costs of disasters are often, and to a large extent, shouldered by governments. Disasters can thereby cause both downside risks to government revenue as well as to expenditure. There is little evidence, and hence limited policy advice, on how disaster-related contingent liabilities are managed by governments. This paper sets out to clarify the concept of contingent liabilities and the channels through which they can impact government balance sheets, including fiscal risks. It provides a framework for identifying and quantifying disaster-related contingent liabilities with a view to inform country case studies for comparative policy analysis.
