On the 22nd of February 2011, much of the residential housing stock in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, was damaged by an unusually destructive earthquake. Almost all of the houses were insured. We ask whether insurance was able to mitigate the damage adequately, or whether the damage from...

We measure the longer-term effect of a major earthquake on the local economy, using night-time light intensity measured from space, and investigate whether insurance claim payments for damaged residential property affected the local recovery process. We focus on the destructive Canterbury...