We describe the flows of aid after large catastrophic natural disasters by using the extensive record of bilateral aid flows, by aid sector, available through the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee. For each large donor, we identify the extent of cross-sector re-allocation that is...

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...

This paper investigates the consequences of natural disasters on firms in Vietnam over the period 2000 to 2008. We examine the impacts of natural disasters on firm investment and retail sales. We find evidence of adverse effects of disasters on retail sales accompanied by an increase in firm...

The last few years have seen an explosion of economic research on the consequences of natural disasters. This new interest is attributable first and foremost to a growing awareness of the potentially catastrophic nature of these events, but also a result of the increasing awareness that natural...

We examine the effects of natural disasters on income and investment in China. Using detailed macroeconomic province-level data and their history of disaster exposure over the past two decades, and after accounting for two-way causality using a three-stage least-squares estimation procedure, we...

We examine the short-run impact of the Canterbury earthquakes (4/9/2010, and 22/2/2011) on the New Zealand economy using VAR macro-models. Maybe surprisingly, we find little evidence of a pronounced impact on the aggregate economy. Our results suggest that the earthquakes reduced CPI inflation...

We conduct a meta-regression analysis of the existing literature on the impacts of disasters on households, focusing on the poor and on poverty measures. We find much heterogeneity in these impacts, but several general patterns, often observed in individual case-studies, emerge. Incomes are...

I employ a typology of disaster impacts that distinguishes between direct and indirect damages. Direct damages are the damage to fixed assets and capital (including inventories), damages to raw materials and extractable natural resources, and of course mortality and morbidity that are a direct...

The global crisis of 2008-9 and the ongoing Euro crisis raise many questions regarding the long-term response to crises. We know that households that lost access to credit, for example, were forced to adjust and increase saving. But, will households remain bigger savers than they would have been...

In 2011, Thailand experienced its worst flooding in decades; it caused widespread damages, and a considerable loss of life. Using data from the Thai Household Socio-Economic Survey (THSES), this paper analyses its economic impacts. In the 2012 THSES, households answered a set of questions on the...