Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A conceptual framework of economic vulnerability

  • Chapter
Natural Disasters, Foreign Trade and Agriculture in Mexico

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science ((BRIEFSENVIRONMENTAL))

  • 531 Accesses

Abstract

This introductory chapter is devoted to presenting the conceptual framework of economic vulnerability and its drivers, as well as analyzes the role of natural disasters in reducing assets accumulation and the derived regional development implications. It provides the background to understand the dynamic of economic vulnerability first in general and further concretely in Mexico. This chapter quotes a number of research works relevant to provide elements for a solid discussion on the original endowment in defining current social asymmetries, poverty and agricultural productivity in Mexico, coming up with an objective view of the problematic, and a grounded argumentation of this work’s hypothesis.

… Una historia que toma sentido a partir de la conciencia de marginalidad

LEOPOLDO ZEA, Filosofía de la historia americana

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    In this concept, hazards are understood as threats to the system, which act by means of perturbations and stressors. Perturbation is a major alteration in the system -of external origin- generating exceeding effects to those the system can cope with, and stress is a continuous increasing pressure upon the system. The novelty of this concept is that it expands the analysis spectrum to embrace multiple stressors and the structure of a hazard’s causal sequence as a complex of socioeconomic conditions and biophysical subsystems lying behind.

  2. 2.

    Entitlements are essentially the system of legal and customary rights defining access to society’s resources.

  3. 3.

    Risk-hazard models tend to consider impacts of hazards as a function of exposure to the hazard event and the sensitivity of the unit without clarifying how the units amplify or attenuate the impacts, as well as the role of multiple stressors in defining susceptibility. In the case of pressure-and-release models (PAR), they emphasize the conditionings of a given unit’s lack of safety, including even ethnicity, class, etc. However, the PAR model does not incorporate biophysical subsystems interacting with society.

  4. 4.

    This is a useful concept whose asymmetry component is closely interconnected with other concepts from the economics of development, like the center-periphery relations and terms of trade in the works of Raúl Prebisch (i.e. 1950 and 1973, respectively).

  5. 5.

    Cfr. Briguglio, L. (1992). Preliminary study on the construction of an Index for ranking countries according to their economic vulnerability. Report to UNCTAD, 1992.

  6. 6.

    The UNCTAD Economic Vulnerability Index was constructed as a composite indicator based on three fundamental dimensions: (1) the magnitude of external shocks beyond domestic control (measured through indicators of the instability of agricultural production and exports); (2) the exposure of the economy to these shocks (estimated through the share of manufacturing and modern services in the gross domestic product, and an indicator of merchandise export concentration), and; (3) the structural handicaps explaining the high exposure of the economy (taking into account economy’s smallness, measured by a proxy demographic variable) -UNCTAD 2003.

  7. 7.

    With a very similar meaning, Cannon (1994: 19) calls this vulnerability of livelihood resilience.

  8. 8.

    Preparedness is the management capability before a disaster occurs to provide an effective and efficient (prompt and due) reaction to face a disaster (Freeman et al 2002). Protection granted by governmental planning plus those from other social institutions are termed social protection, which acts complementary to self-protection (Cannon 1994).

  9. 9.

    In fact, adaptability is the preferred term for this work though that word itself could seem to misrepresent its components, and perhaps could be better represented by terms like resistance, strength, etc. However, most literature of vulnerability uses it conventionally to represent system’s ability, competency or capacity of a system to adapt and respond to climatic stimuli. Also, see Schjolden (2003), Kelly and Adger (2000), and Chambers (1989).

  10. 10.

    Indirect losses are actually the share of unrealized production, which act by reducing GDP growth in the current year, whereas direct losses are not accounted into GDP growth reductions, since they are added value belonging to GDP accounting of past years (cfr. ECLAC 2002).

  11. 11.

    A key argument in the current debate about development in developing countries is that income alone is an insufficient indicator of economic well-being. In response, various alternative supplementary measures have been proposed, including consumption-, income- and wealth-based indicators (SEDESOL 2002; Haveman and Wolff 2000; Slesnick 1993). The present work considers assets the ideal welfare measure. Despite recognizing that fact, this work approaches assets by household incomes in measuring economic vulnerability in chapter five. We did so because available statistics and data sources do not allow us to make assets’ quantitative analysis. Hence, quantitative analysis of economic vulnerability until assets level will be possible for only the individual municipalities that our case of study inquires through field work in chapter 4.

  12. 12.

    For instance, infrastructure necessities in least developed countries consist conventionally on tap water and sanitation services, but in middle income countries like Mexico electricity is included as well.

  13. 13.

    Among measurements of poverty, there are two basic criteria: income and consumption. Income-based measurements of poverty embrace the total current monetary and non-monetary inflow a household obtains from different functional sources, including wages, salaries, dividends, rents, etc. The use of income-based measurements is advantageous in that of allowing identifying those economic activities to be strengthened to reduce vulnerability, -tough more subject to errors due to difficulties in incorporating non-monetary income, self-consumption and transfers. Consumption-based measurements consist of the total amount of monetary and non-monetary expenditure a household makes in all possible items. The advantage of using consumption-based measurements of poverty relies on the fact that it reflects smoothing strategies a household implement in response to sudden income fluctuations, i.e. family solidarity, aid, remittances (World Bank 2004).

  14. 14.

    Extreme poor consists of populations living below the food-based poverty line.

  15. 15.

    The Gini coefficient is a measure of income inequality developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini. The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 means perfect equality (everyone has the same income) and 1 means perfect inequality (one person has all the income, everyone else has nothing).

  16. 16.

    For further details about Endowment, and Endowment Effect, see John List (University of Maryland), and Daniel Kahneman (Homo sapiens vs. Homo economicus).

  17. 17.

    Post-revolution is conventionally considered the period between the end of the government of Alvaro Obregon –the last Caudillo-, in 1928, and the end of the Second World War in 1945, characterized land redistribution, expropriation of the oil industry and the beginning of a model of economic growth based on imports substitution.

  18. 18.

    Industry understood as the group of activities related to primary resources processing and manufactures.

  19. 19.

    For instance, the historic process of recognizing property titles to landlords in Britain embracing communal lands during the XVII and XVIII centuries forced displacements of enormous masses of rural workers to urban centers to meet the increasing workforce demand from the increasing industrialization process (Marx 1867; Ricardo 1817).

Chapter References

  • Abramowitz J, Banuri T et al. (2002) Adapting to Climate Change: Natural Resource Management and Vulnerability Reduction. Background Paper to the Task Force on Climate Change, Adaptation and Vulnerable Communities. World Conservation Union – Worldwatch Institute - International Institute for Sustainable Development - Stockholm Environment Institute

    Google Scholar 

  • Adams RH, He JJ (1995) Sources of Income Inequality and Poverty in Rural Pakistan. International Food Policy Research Institute. Research Report 102. Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Adger NW (1999) Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam. World Development 27

    Google Scholar 

  • Aguilar H, Meyer L (1989) A la sombra de la Revolución Mexicana. Mexico. Cal y Arena, Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • Alaman L (1968). Historia de México. Mexico City, Ed. Jus, 1968, 5 Vol

    Google Scholar 

  • Attanasio O, Szekely M (1999) La pobreza en América Latina. La pobreza basada en los activos. El trimestre económico, pobreza y activos en América Latina, Vol. LXVI (3), No. 236. Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE). Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • Briguglio L (2002) The Economic Vulnerability of Small Island Developing States. In: Sustainable Development for Island Societies: Taiwan and the World, Asia Pacific Research Program w/SARCS Secretariat Publication. Taiwan

    Google Scholar 

  • Briguglio L (1992) Preliminary study on the construction of an Index for ranking countries according to their economic vulnerability. Report to UNCTAD 1992

    Google Scholar 

  • Cannon T (1994) Vulnerability Analysis and the Explanation of ‘Natural’ Disasters. In: Varley A (ed) Disasters, development and environment. Willey, Chichester

    Google Scholar 

  • Chambers R (1989) Vulnerability, Coping and Policy. IDS Bulletin 20:1–7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cocklin C (2002) Cities, water and global environmental change: governance, water use and infrastructure as a remedy for water issues in cities. In: UPDATE IHDP, Newsletter of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change. 03/2002

    Google Scholar 

  • Colosio-Murrieta, LD (1979) Urbanization and Economic Development in Mexico. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Working Paper. Laxenburg, Austria

    Google Scholar 

  • Conde C, Saldaña-Zorrilla SO (2008) Climate Change in Latin-America and Caribbean Countries: Impacts, Vulnerability and the need for Adaptation. Challenges on Climate Change in Latin-America. Foundation Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA-Equator), The International Development Research Centre (IDRC-Canada) and Department for international Development (DFID-UK). 17 pp. January 2008

    Google Scholar 

  • Cosío-Villegas D et al. (1991) Historia Mínima de México. El Colegio de México. Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE). Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • Dilley M, Boudreau TE (2001) Coming to terms with vulnerability: a critique of the food security definition. Food Policy 26

    Google Scholar 

  • ECLAC (2002) Manual for Estimating the Socio-Economic Effects of Natural Disasters. United Nations Economic Commission for Latin-America and the. Caribbean, Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • ECLAC (2001) Instituciones y pobreza rurales en México y Centroamérica (Institutions and rural poverty in Mexico and Central America). United Nations Economic Commission for Latin-America and the Caribbean, P. 30, Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • Fein JC, Ranis G (1964) Development of the labor surplus economy: theory and policy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fein JC, Ranis G (1961) A theory of economic development. American Economic Review 51:533–565

    Google Scholar 

  • Figueroa A (1991) Desarrollo agrícola en la América Latina (Agricultural development in Latin-America). In: El Desarrollo desde adentro. El Trimestre Económico No. 71. ECLAC. Fondo de Cultura Económica. Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher M, Weber B (2004) Does economic vulnerability depend on place of residence? Asset poverty across the rural-urban continuum. Rural Poverty Research Center. Working Paper No. 04–01

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman P, Mechler R (2001) Public sector risk management in Mexico for Natural Disaster Losses. Issues paper for a Wharton-World Bank Conference on “Innovations in Managing Catastrophic Risks: how can they help the poor?” Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman P, Martin L, Bayer J et al (2002) National System for Comprehensive Disaster Management, Phase 2: Financing Reconstruction. Dialogue, Inter-American Development Bank Regional Policy

    Google Scholar 

  • Haveman R, Wolff E (2000) Who are the asset poor? Levels, trends and composition, 1983-1998. Washington University Center for Sociial Devlopment. Working Paper 00-12. St. Louis

    Google Scholar 

  • INEGI (2003) National Institute of Statistics. Geography and Informatics http://wwwinegigobmx/est/contenidos/espanol/tematicos/mediano/medasp?t=agro01&c=4790 Accessed 20(June 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  • INEGI (2000) Anuario de Estadísticas por entidad federativa, Ed. 2000, National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics, Aguascalientes http://www.inegi.gob.mx/difusion/espanol/bvinegi/aef/indef.pdf Accessed 15 December 2000

  • Janvry A, Sadoulet E (2000) Rural Poverty in Latin America: Causalities and Exit Paths. Food Policy 25(4):379–530

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaminsky G, Reinhart CM (1996) The twin crises: the causes of banking and balance-of-payments problems.” International Finance Discussion Paper No. 544 Washington, D.C.: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (March)

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly PM, Adger WN (2000) Theory and Practice in Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change and Facilitating Adaptation. Climate Change 47

    Google Scholar 

  • Leichenko RM, O’Brien KL (2001) The Dynamics of Rural Vulnerability to Global Change: the Case of Southern Africa. Mittigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 7. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Netherlands

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis WA (1954) Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour. Studies, Manchester School of Economics and Social

    Google Scholar 

  • Liverman D (1990) Vulnerability to Global Environmental Change. In: Understanding Global Environmental Change, Ed. Kasperson. Annals of the Association of American Geographers

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx K (1867) Expropriation des Landsvolks von Grund und Boden. Die so genannte Ursprüngliche Akkumulation. 24. Kapiteln. In: Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie. Erster Band. Nach der ersten von Friedrich Engels herausgegeben Auflage. Hamburg, 1864

    Google Scholar 

  • Montserrat H, Chavez M (2003) Tres Modelos de Política Económica en México durante los últimos sesenta años. In: Análisis Económico No. 37., Vol. XVIII. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • Norris FH, Stevens SP, Pfefferbaum B et al (2008) Community resilience as a Metaphor, Theory, Set of Capacities and Strategy for Disasters Readyness. American Journal of Community Psychology 41:127–150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliver ML, Shapiro TM (1990) Wealth of a nation: a reassessment of asset inequality in America shows at least one third of households are asset-poor. American Journal of Economics and Sociology 49(2)

    Google Scholar 

  • Prebisch R (1973) La cooperación internacional en la política de desarrollo latinoamericano. Santiago

    Google Scholar 

  • Prebisch (1951) Problemas teóricos y prácticos del crecimiento económico. Santiago

    Google Scholar 

  • Prebisch (1950) The economic development of Latin America and its principal problems. United Nations, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ravillon M, Datt G (1996) How important to India’s poor is the Sectoral Composition of Economic Growth? World Bank. Economic Review. Vol. 10 (1)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricardo D (1817) Chapter XXI Effects of Accumulation on Profits and Interest. Principles of Political Economy. Third Edition. Everyman Library, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodríguez O (1980) La teoría del subdesarrollo de la CEPAL (The ECLAC’s Underdevelopment Theory). Ed. Siglo XXI, Mexico, City

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarris A (2001) The Role of Agriculture in Economic Development and Poverty Reduction: an Empirical and Conceptual Foundation. Rural Development Department. The World Bank Group. Rural Strategy Background Paper No. 2. Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Schjolden A (2003) Are Vulnerability and Adaptability two sides of the same coin? A critical view of climate impacts research. In: Update IHDP, 04/2003. Bonn, Germany

    Google Scholar 

  • SEDESOL (2002) Discurso de la Secretaria Josefina Vazquez Mota. Serie documentos de Investigación. Secretaría de Desarrollo Social, Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen A (1981) Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Sherraden M (1991) Assets and the poor. M. E. Sharpe Inc., Armonk, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Slesnick DT (1993) Gaining ground: Poverty in the postwar United States. Journal of Political Economy 101:1–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singer H (1950) The distribution of gains between borrowing and investing countries. American Economic Review 40:473–485

    Google Scholar 

  • Tejo P (2000) La pobreza rural. Una preocupación permanente en el pensamiento de la CEPAL. Red de Desarrollo Productivo. Unidad de Desarrollo Agrícola. División de Desarrollo Productivo y Empresarial. ECLAC. Santiago. http://www.eclac.cl/publicaciones/DesarrolloProductivo/4/lcl1454/LCL1454P.pdf

  • Timmer CP (1997) How well do the Poor connect to the Growth Process? CAER Disscussion Paper No. 178. Harvard Institute for International Development. Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Todaro MP (2000) Urbanization and Rural-Urban Migration: Theory and Practice. Economic Development. Seventh Edition. Addison Wesley Longman. Essex, In

    Google Scholar 

  • Todaro MP (1982) Economics for a Developing World, 2nd edn. Ed. Longman Group Limited, Essex, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner BL et al (2003) A Framework for Vulnerability Analysis in Sustainability Science. 8074–8079 PNAS. July 8, 2003. Vol. 100. No. 14. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1231335100

  • UNCTAD (2003) Economic Vulnerability: the UN approach to the economic vulnerability of Least Developing Countries: implications for Asian and Pacific LDCs. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Pp. 2-7. Bangkok

    Google Scholar 

  • Vatsa KS, Krimgold F (2000) In: Managing Disaster Risk in Emerging Economies; “Financing Disaster Mitigation for the Poor”. The World Bank

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank (2004) Poverty in Mexico: an assessment of conditions, trends, and government strategy. Report No: 28612. Mexico City

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank (2002) Country assistance strategy of the World Bank Group for the Mexican United States, 2002. Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank (2001a) World Bank Development Indicators. World Bank, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank (2001b) Poverty Reduction in Indonesia: constructing a new strategy. Report No. 23028-IND. Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff E (2001) Recent trends in wealth ownership, 1983-1998. In Shapiro and Wolff (eds.), Assets of the Poor, Russell Sage Foundation. New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Yap JT (2002) Monitoring Economic Vulnerability and Performance: Applications to the Philippines. Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Thailand Development Research Institute, Manila

    Google Scholar 

  • Zapata-Martí R, Saldaña-Zorrilla SO (2009) Evolución de la Epidemia de Dengue en el Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia en 2009. Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), Naciones Unidas y Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS). 65 pp. March 2010. Santiago, Chile

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Risk, Policy and Vulnerability Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

    Sergio O. Saldaña-Zorrilla (Research Scholar)

Authors
  1. Sergio O. Saldaña-Zorrilla
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 The Author

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Saldaña-Zorrilla, S.O. (2015). A conceptual framework of economic vulnerability. In: Natural Disasters, Foreign Trade and Agriculture in Mexico. SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17359-7_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation