Search

The devastating Japan earthquake (magnitude 9.0) and tsunami (39-metre high) of 2011, also called the Great Tohoku or Sendai earthquake, was a record-breaker natural disaster causing enormous damage and a nuclear meltdown at Fukushima nuclear power plant. This paper attempts to analyse the long and short run effects of this record-breaking natural disaster on the Japanese equity, debt and FX markets as well as Gold as one of the most popular metals and investment options, using daily data. A variance bound test proposed by Fakhry & Richter (2018) underpinned by the C-GARCH-t model of volatility is adopted. The results seem to indicate that the natural disaster influenced the efficiency of the market in the immediate terms more than the long term. In a global financial market where the key is competitiveness, it is essential to analyse the efficiency and therefore stability of the Japanese financial market. Therefore, analysing the impact of the natural disaster on the competitiveness of the Japanese financial market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, the 2011 Sendai, Japan earthquake, the 1967 nuclear technology disaster in New Haven, Connecticut and the 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan. The author argues that human intention is a factor in events and suggests that the world prepare for natural and accidental disasters in the future.