A computable general equilibrium analysis of the economic effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

This research is focused on some of the major consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the effect that they had on the economy in Ukraine. Specifically, it focuses on indirect longer-term impacts in every major sector of the economy due to the Chernobyl accident. These impacts include changes in the supply of goods and services in different sectors of the economy, their price; export and import quantities; private consumption; public sector demand; investment; domestic market price, import and export price, wage rate, return to capital and wages. These results can be used by policy makers and other researchers to better understand sectoral distribution of impact of such disasters and provide resources where they are most needed. To estimate these indirect effects state of the art methodology such as a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling has been used. It is the first time that this methodology is applied to the Chernobyl accident.;Several direct consequences were estimated: approximately 4661 people are expected to have cancers that can be attributed to Chernobyl during the 15 years following the accident. There are another 9281 people that are expected to have other serious illnesses. Another important direct consequence is the decline in birth rate coefficient. It is mostly due to physiological effects of the disaster. It is estimated that Chernobyl triggered decline in birth coefficient of around 0.93 between 1986 and 1989 in Ukraine. This accounts for 24309 workers. These direct effects are applied in simulations to estimate sectoral distribution of longer-term impacts. In the absence of Chernobyl sectoral production would have been higher while prices are lower. Changes in production range between 0.1% and 1.7% depending on the scenario and sector. Generally sectors can be divided into 3 categories: very sensitive, medium and low sensitive. The reason why some sectors are more sensitive while others are not is probably are due to a specific structure of the economy and intensity with which each sector is using labor and capital.