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PUBLICATIONS

Does Resilience Yield Dividends? Co-Benefits of Investing in Increased Resilience in Cedar Rapids

Published

Author(s)

Juan F. Fung, Jennifer F. Helgeson, David H. Webb, Cheyney M. O'Fallon, Harvey Cutler

Abstract

Cedar Rapids, IA, offers a unique case study in planning for increased resilience. In 2008, Cedar Rapids experienced severe flooding. Rather than simply rebuilding, the city of Cedar Rapids began to invest in a resilient flood control system and in the revitalization of its Downtown neighborhood. This paper develops a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for the regional economy of Cedar Rapids to quantify "resilience dividends": net co-benefits of investing in increased resilience. A resilience dividend includes benefits to the community even if another disaster does not occur. We build a CGE model of Cedar Rapids at two different time periods: one in 2007, before the flooding, and one in 2015, after the flooding and initial investment in resilience. We show that a positive economic shock to the economy results in larger co-benefits for key economic indicators in 2015 than in 2007. Our approach illustrates how co-benefits are distributed throughout the economy.
Citation
Economic Systems Research
Pub Type
Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1080/09535314.2020.1798359
Local Download

Keywords

co-benefits, resilience, natural disasters, CGE
Resilience, Community resilience and Building economics

Citation

Fung, J. , Helgeson, J. , Webb, D. , O'Fallon, C. and Cutler, H. (2020), Does Resilience Yield Dividends? Co-Benefits of Investing in Increased Resilience in Cedar Rapids, Economic Systems Research, [online], https://doi.org/10.1080/09535314.2020.1798359 (Accessed October 9, 2025)

Issues

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Created August 2, 2020, Updated August 4, 2020
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