This paper investigates the link between development, economic growth, and the economic losses from natural disasters in a general analytical framework, with an application to hurricane flood risks in New Orleans. It concludes that where capital accumulates through increased density of capital...

While the short-term growth consequences of natural disasters are comparatively well studied, there is little knowledge how disasters affect long-run growth. Based on truly exogenous storm indicators, derived from a meteorological database, we show that the growth effects of tropical storms go...