The impact of the Canterbury earthquakes on household income and expenditure in the Canterbury region in New Zealand
- 1Victoria University of Wellington (Wellington, New Zealand)
Abstract
Using New Zealand's Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), we evaluate the effects of the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes on household income and expenditure. We link data from the Household Economic Survey (HES) to administrative address histories and meshblock-level earthquake intensity, and implement a propensity-score-matched difference-in-differences (PSM-DiD) design comparing exposed Canterbury households with matched North Island households. We find that total and regular household income increase by approximately 7000–7900 New Zealand dollars (NZD) in both low- and high-intensity areas. Total expenditure shows no clear average DiD effect, but its composition changes substantially. In high-intensity areas, the magnitude of recorded receipts-and-refunds entries, an HES category that includes insurance reimbursements and related inflows, more than doubles, while spending on general insurance, transportation, telecommunications, diary-recorded day-to-day purchases, fees and subscriptions also increases. Expenditure responses are broader among above-median-income households than among below-median-income households. Households later observed outside Canterbury have housing costs around NZD 25 000 higher and mortgage and loan payments around NZD 9600 lower than households that remain, while conditional income differences are statistically insignificant. These findings show that post-disaster income growth can coexist with heterogeneous recovery costs and substantial changes in household expenditure.
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BibTeX
@article{zhang2026impact,
title = {{The impact of the Canterbury earthquakes on household income and expenditure in the Canterbury region in New Zealand}},
author = {Quanfu Zhang and Ilan Noy and Yigit Saglam},
journal = {Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5194/nhess-26-4937-2026},
url = {https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/26/4937/2026/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - The impact of the Canterbury earthquakes on household income and expenditure in the Canterbury region in New Zealand
AU - Quanfu Zhang
AU - Ilan Noy
AU - Yigit Saglam
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/13
JO - Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DO - 10.5194/nhess-26-4937-2026
UR - https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/26/4937/2026/
AB - Using New Zealand's Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), we evaluate the effects of the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes on household income and expenditure. We link data from the Household Economic Survey (HES) to administrative address histories and meshblock-level earthquake intensity, and implement a propensity-score-matched difference-in-differences (PSM-DiD) design comparing exposed Canterbury households with matched North Island households. We find that total and regular household income increase by approximately 7000–7900 New Zealand dollars (NZD) in both low- and high-intensity areas. Total expenditure shows no clear average DiD effect, but its composition changes substantially. In high-intensity areas, the magnitude of recorded receipts-and-refunds entries, an HES category that includes insurance reimbursements and related inflows, more than doubles, while spending on general insurance, transportation, telecommunications, diary-recorded day-to-day purchases, fees and subscriptions also increases. Expenditure responses are broader among above-median-income households than among below-median-income households. Households later observed outside Canterbury have housing costs around NZD 25 000 higher and mortgage and loan payments around NZD 9600 lower than households that remain, while conditional income differences are statistically insignificant. These findings show that post-disaster income growth can coexist with heterogeneous recovery costs and substantial changes in household expenditure.
SN - 1684-9981
ER -