Not very. We find that weather disasters over the last quarter century had insignificant or small effects on U.S. banks' performance. This stability seems endogenous rather than a mere reflection of federal aid. Disasters increase loan demand, which offsets losses and actually boosts profits at...

This paper uses inter-country panel data obtained during the period 1990-2010 to examine how the occurrence of natural disasters has affected corruption within the public sector. There are a number of new findings from this study. (1) Disaster with the large amount of damage increase corruption...

The recent literature on the determinants of populism has highlighted the role of long-term trends of progressive isolation and prolonged economic stagnation in engendering discontent and, in turn, demand for political change. We investigate, instead, the potential of unanticipated local shocks...