We systematize recent macroeconomic empirical literature on the direct and indirect impact of natural disasters providing a meta-analysis of 20 studies published during 2002-2013. We show that the disagreement between these studies is caused by the empirical design, the estimation technique and...

We use the case of the impact of natural disasters to analyse strengths and weaknesses of meta-analysis in an emerging research field. Macroeconomists have published on this issue since 2002 (we identified 22 studies to date). The results of the studies are contradictory and therefore the need...