论文标题
卡特里娜飓风是否降低了死亡率？
Did Hurricane Katrina Reduce Mortality?
论文作者
论文摘要
在《美国经济评论》最近的一篇文章中，塔蒂亚娜·德里吉纳（Tatyana Deryugina）和戴维·莫里托（David Molitor）（DM）分析了卡特里娜飓风对新奥尔良老年人和残疾居民死亡率的影响。作者得出的结论是，卡特里娜飓风将新奥尔良的老年人和残疾人居民的八年生存率提高了3％，而死亡率的大部分下降都是由于死亡人数降低到死亡率较低的人的死亡率下降所致。在本文中，我对DM提供的证据进行了批判性评估，以支持其结论。有三个主要问题。首先，DM通常无法解释以下事实：不同年龄，种族或性别的人们会随着时间的流逝而死亡的概率不同，而当他们允许的情况下，结果显着变化。其次，DM不能说明新奥尔良的居民可能是根据健康选择非随机选择的事实，因为与该国其他地区相比，新奥尔良的死亡率相对较高。第三，有大量的证据表明，在从新奥尔良迁居的人中，所选的目的地是非随机的。最后，DM从未直接评估卡特里娜飓风前后在新奥尔良搬迁或留下的人的死亡率变化。这些问题使我得出结论，DM提供的证据不支持其推论。
In a recent article in the American Economic Review, Tatyana Deryugina and David Molitor (DM) analyzed the effect of Hurricane Katrina on the mortality of elderly and disabled residents of New Orleans. The authors concluded that Hurricane Katrina improved the eight-year survival rate of elderly and disabled residents of New Orleans by 3% and that most of this decline in mortality was due to declines in mortality among those who moved to places with lower mortality. In this article, I provide a critical assessment of the evidence provided by DM to support their conclusions. There are three main problems. First, DM generally fail to account for the fact that people of different ages, races or sex will have different probabilities of dying as time goes by, and when they do allow for this, results change markedly. Second, DM do not account for the fact that residents in New Orleans are likely to be selected non-randomly on the basis of health because of the relatively high mortality rate in New Orleans compared to the rest of the country. Third, there is considerable evidence that among those who moved from New Orleans, the destination chosen was non-random. Finally, DM never directly assessed changes in mortality of those who moved, or stayed, in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina. These problems lead me to conclude that the evidence presented by DM does not support their inferences.
