The role of rurality in determining the economy-wide impacts of a natural disaster

Rural areas may be highly vulnerable to natural disasters because of their lower economic diversification and a higher incidence of sectors that may suffer from a larger impact produced by these adverse events. In addition because of their trade dependence, local effects can be transmitted to neighbouring regions more diffusely so amplifying total impacts. This paper aims to quantify the economy-wide impacts generated by the earthquake sequence that mostly hit a markedly rural area of Central Italy in 2016–2017. To this purpose, a non-linear programming model based on a multi-regional IO table with a mixed territorial scale is adopted. Results indicate that some negative effects are transmitted outside the seismic area and a few positive effects are also produced. Moreover, they confirm that rural areas are more vulnerable to disasters and that the effects of disasters in these areas are more likely to be transmitted to the neighbouring space.