COMPLETION REPORT
Comparison of Vulnerability of Developed and Developing Economics to Disaster Ripple Effects: The Caseof Japan and the Philippines
Dr. Krista Danielle Sy Yu (+5)
Assistant Professor
School of Economics,
De La Salle University

Natural hazards have both increased in terms of incidence and intensity, which can be attributed to climatechange impacts. In a globalized economy, the impacts of natural hazards are no longer confined to the locality
where the natural hazard occurred. For example, a flood in the Philippines does not only paralyze business
transactions in the country, but it extends through other countries as far as the United States and Europe as somebusiness processes are outsourced to firms located in the Philippines.
The geographic location of countries along the Pacific Ring of Fire makes them vulnerable to natural hazards
such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and typhoons. Japan, as a result, invests heavily on disaster risk mitigation
to minimize the impact of such events. However, developing countries such as the Philippines, are subject to thesame types of hazards but have limited resources for effective disaster preparedness and response. This study
provides a comparative analysis of the disaster vulnerability between the Philippine and Japanese economies
through the use of closed inoperability input-output models. Input-output models have been used to measure theeconomic impacts of external shocks by capitalizing on the interdependencies between each sector. Through aclosed inoperability input-output model, the study is able to factor in the effects of changes in consumption patterns
resulting from a natural disaster. Furthermore, the model has the ability to estimate the inoperability levels andeconomic losses due to natural disasters. In particular, the study takes the cases of the 2011 Great East Japan
Earthquake and the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan and estimate the impact of reductions in the labor force supply resulting
from deaths, injuries and missing persons. It can be drawn that the Philippines as a developing country suffers fromhigher levels of inoperability, however, Japan as a developed country incurs significantly large economic losses.
The model is made available to the public through a web portal with a bilingual interface for Japanese users,
Disaster Risk Estimation and Analysis with Leontief Models (http://www.disaster-realm.net), which gives users
access to the tool that estimates the economic losses and inoperability levels for different economic sectors of thePhilippine and Japanese economies.

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Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)
November 1, 2015, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan, Pan Pacific Association of Input-Ouptut Studies 26th
Conference, A Closed Inoperability Input-Output Model for Modeling Disaster Impact through Labor Supply
Disruption (Krista Danielle S. Yu, Kathleen B. Aviso, Marites M. Tiongco, Michael Angelo B. Promentilla,Joost R. Santos, Yasuhide Okuyama, and Raymond R. Tan)
February 19, 2016, Kitakyushu Science Research Park, Measuring Strength and Weakness of the Society inDisaster Responses, Economic Impacts of Disasters: Overview (Yasuhide Okuyama)
February 19, 2016, Kitakyushu Science Research Park, Living in the “Disaster-REALM”: A Web-based Tool
for Eastimating the Economic Impact of Natural Disasters (Krista Danielle S. Yu)

Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)

Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)

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