Using an economic model to assess welfare risk and resilience to disasters, this paper systematically tackles the questions: 1) How much asset and welfare risks does each region in the Philippines face from riverine flood disasters? 2) How resilient is each region to riverine flood disasters?...

Climate change appears to be increasing the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, negatively affecting communities as well as posing long-term sustainability challenges to insurance (risk transfer) mechanisms. New Zealand’s public natural hazard insurer, the Earthquake Commission...

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...

Catastrophes caused by natural disasters are by no means new, yet the evolving understanding of their relevance to economic development and growth is still in its infancy. In order to facilitate further necessary research on this topic, this paper summarizes the state of the economic literature...

This paper investigates the vulnerability of households to climatic disasters in the low-lying atoll nation of Tuvalu. Small Island Developing States, particularly the atoll islands, are considered to be the most vulnerable to climatic change, and in particular to sea-level rise and its...

We estimate the causal effect of the Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka on household income and consumption eight years after the event, using a quasi-experimental method. A strong association between area-wide tsunami disaster shock and increases in household income and consumption in the...

The Pacific Islands face the highest disaster risk, in per capita terms, globally. Examples of catastrophic events in the region include the 2009 tsunami in Samoa, the 2014 floods in the Solomon Islands, and the 2015 cyclone Pam in Vanuatu. Even without these catastrophic events, countries in...

Economics, generally, is a discipline in which relatively little attention is devoted to language and terminology. As such, economists have not really attempted to define the concept of disasters very carefully, nor have they evaluated the ethics that are behind the economic analysis of...

Globally, the single-most observable, predictable, and certain impact of climate change is sea level rise. Using a case study from the Kapiti Coast District in New Zealand, we pose a simple question: Do people factor in the warnings provided by scientists and governments about the risk of...

We quantify the impacts of droughts in New Zealand on the profitability of dairy, and sheep and beef farms. Using a comprehensive administrative database of all businesses in New Zealand, we investigate the impact of droughts on farm revenue, profits, return on capital, business equity, debt to...