为什么有些国家建造得更安全？经济约束、灾难学习和两阶段住房质量阶梯（英）

11319 Why Do Some Countries Build Safer? Economic Constraints, Disaster Learning,and the Two-Stage Housing Quality Ladder Urban, Disaster Risk Management,Resilience and Land Global DepartmentFebruary 2026 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11319 Abstract Why do some countries have more disaster-resilient hous-ing than others, even at similar income levels? This paperaddresses this question using a novel data set on housingrobustness in 150 countries and proposes a “two-stage hous-ing quality ladder” framework. The analysis reveals thatthe constraints on housing improvement fundamentallydiffer across development stages. In the first stage—elimi-nating fragile housing—household poverty is the bindingconstraint, showing strong negative associations with hous-ing quality and nonlinear effects that diminish at extremepoverty levels. Progress depends primarily on povertyalleviation and basic governance capacity. In the secondstage—achieving robust, engineered construction—house-hold poverty becomes statistically insignificant. Instead,national income, construction-sector institutions (build-ing codes, permit systems, and inspections), and overallinstitutional quality emerge as the critical determinants. The paper further demonstrates that countries learn fromdisaster experience, but this learning is hazard-specific andmediated by governance quality. Earthquake experienceconsistently drives improvements in housing resilience,particularly in well-governed countries, while storm andflood experiences show weaker direct effects but signifi-cant interactions with poverty levels. These findings carryimportant policy implications: disaster risk reductioninvestments should emphasize poverty alleviation and basicgovernance in low-income countries eliminating fragilehousing, while middle- and high-income countries shouldprioritize construction-sector regulatory capacity and codeenforcement systems to achieve robust engineering stan-dards. Earthquake-prone countries benefit particularly frominstitutional strengthening that enables sustained learningfrom repeated seismic events. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Why Do Some Countries Build Safer? Economic Constraints, Disaster Learning,and the Two-Stage Housing Quality Ladder Yasuhiro Kawasoe The World Bank Keywords: Housing Resilience, Disaster Risk Management, Building Codes, Poverty,Economic Development, Institutional Quality, Disaster Learning JEL codes: O18, Q54, R31, I32, H84 1.Introduction 1.1.The Housing Vulnerability Challenge The pronounced disparityin impacts amongrecent global earthquakes underscores afundamental reality: the quality of the built environment, particularly housing, is theprimary determinant of disasterdamageand loss of life. On January 1, 2024, themagnitude 7.6 Noto Peninsula earthquake in Japan resulted in 228 direct fatalitiesandestimated economic losses ranging from $7.3billion to $17.3 billion, with 6,536buildings destroyed(Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, 2025). While the Notoearthquake causedsubstantialdamage,its human toll and physical destruction remainrelatively low when contrasted with the February 6, 2023, twin earthquakes (magnitudes7.8 and 7.5) that struckTürkiyeandtheSyrian Arab Republic.Thesecatastrophiceventscausedmore than56,000 deaths, damaged at least 230,000 buildings, and incurredapproximately $40 billion in direct losses(Brand, et al., 2023)(World Bank, 2023).Although geographic exposure and seismic intensity varied, the stark difference inhuman impact is largely attributable tothe divergence in housing resilience andstructural robustness. Globally, the scale of housing inadequacy presents a critical development challenge.More than2.8billion people live in inadequate housing,including 1.1 billion people ininformal settlements andslumswith the majoritylocatedin developing countries(UN-HABITAT, 2025).This physical vulnerability compounds catastrophic financial risks:annual disaster losses exceed $2.3 trillion including indirect and ecosystem impacts(UNDRR, 2025).For low-income and poor households, housing frequently represents asubstantial portion of their total wealth, often making its destruction in a disaster adevastating and inescapable poverty s