While companies have emerged as very proactive donors in the wake of recent major disasters like Hurricane Katrina, it remains unclear whether that corporate generosity generates benefits to firms themselves. The literature on strategic philanthropy suggests that such philanthropic behavior may...

For the last several years, the price of listed real estate stocks has been unusually high relative to dividends. We explore whether low interest rates or low risk premia can account for the high valuation ratios and find that they cannot. Lower interest rates have been offset by rising risk...

The welfare impact of a disaster does not depend only on the physical characteristics of the event or its direct impacts in terms of lost lives and assets. Depending on the ability of the economy to cope, recover, and reconstruct, the reconstruction will be more or less difficult, and the...

We examine how banks respond to large natural disasters when corporate borrowers are located in the neighborhood of the disaster area. We find robust evidence that banks charge significantly higher loan spreads for firms located in the neighborhood of the disaster area than for remote firms. The...