This paper examines Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the aftermath of large natural disasters between 1970 and 2008. Using an event-study approach, the paper finds that while the median increase in ODA is 18 percent compared to pre-disaster flows, the typical surge is small in relation...

The 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic was the first epidemic of the 21st century to pose a threat to global health and generate considerable panic across the globe. Fortunately, due to the rapid containment of the epidemic, both the harm to the public's health and economic...

The long-term economic consequences of catastrophic disasters are poorly understood. This lacuna is surprising since the long-term effects may be much more important than the short-term emergency phase. In contrast, the policy literature is full of aspirational plans to "build back better" (BBB)...

The standard approach to 'nowcast' disaster impacts, which relies on risk models, does not typically account for the compounding impact of various hazard phenomena (e.g., wind and rainfall associated with tropical storms). The alternative, traditionally, has been a team of experts sent to the...

In this paper, we identify the main fishing grounds and track the response of fishing vessels' activity to tropical cyclones (TCs) in the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone during 2012. We use satellite imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to locate fishing vessels...

This paper uses simple regression techniques to make an initial assessment of the monetary damages caused by the January 12, 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti. Damages are estimated for a disaster with both 200,000 and 250,000 total dead and missing (i.e., the range of mortality that the...

Although financial development is good for long-term growth, not all countries pursue policies that render full financial development. This paper builds on an extensive political economy literature to construct a theoretical model showing that the intensity of opposition to financial development...

This paper examines the short and long-run average causal impact of catastrophic natural disasters on economic growth by combining information from comparative case studies. The counterfactual of the cases studied is assessed by constructing synthetic control groups, taking advantage of the fact...

Natural disasters are by no means new, yet the evolving understanding of their relevance to economic development and growth is still in its infancy. This paper summarizes the state of the economic literature examining the aggregate impact of disasters. The paper reviews the main disaster data...

Why do people save? A strand of the literature has emphasized the role of ‘precautionary' motives; i.e., private agents save in order to mitigate unexpected future income shocks. An implication is that in countries faced with more macroeconomic volatility and risk, private saving should be...