Saving in the Wake of a Natural Disaster

The research question is what are the effects of natural disasters in the Southeastern United States on taxable IRA distributions per capita? This question can be broken down into multiple different required data sets used for the dependent variable, i.e. IRA Distributions Per Capita, and the independent variable containing the population in natural disaster declared counties for a given year. In regards to natural disasters, the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) data on major disaster declarations and emergency declarations of hurricanes/tropical storms, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires per county will be used. The IRS database for tax forms from every state dating back to 1999 containing IRA distributions, i.e. the amount of money citizens took out of their IRAs, will be used for the dependent variable. The research question attempts to find how natural disasters in the Southeastern United States affect taxable IRA distributions per capita in those states. Kennett-Hensel et al researched consumerism in the wake of a natural disaster and their findings suggest that victims tend to spend more after a disaster than before. Keynesian economic theory also suggests that when aggregate demand decreases in an economy, such as in the wake of a disaster, investment and savings tend to decrease. The hypothesis of the research questions predicts that a natural disaster will cause more IRA distributions per capita. The regression model showed that natural disasters do not have a significant effect on taxable IRA distributions per capita