The Role of Public Wealth in Recovery and Resiliency to Natural Disasters in Rural Communities

In this paper, we evaluate how initial public sector wealth of northern Gulf Coast metropolitan and nonmetropolitan county and parish governments affects their post-hurricane fiscal health. We identify fiscal challenges faced by these county governments and highlight research defining and measuring their fiscal health. Using financial statement data, we estimate a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model for county government fiscal health, and identify implications from results for public sector wealth in rural communities.