We estimate the causal effect of cash grants on household finance and business survival following a natural disaster. Disaster-affected individuals in high damage blocks with access to cash grants have 17% less credit card debt following the disaster than those without access to cash grants....

We develop a model of a small region with durable housing, endogenous home maintenance, and disaster expectations, in which hurricane strike damage is a function of maintenance decisions. The model implies that declining areas (relative to growing areas) have a less well-maintained housing...

Federal disaster insurance - in the form of national flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other programs - is designed to nationally distribute large geography-specific shocks such as earthquakes and hurricanes. This study examines how residents were affected on...

Natural disasters have considerable economic and social ramifications by disrupting public utility services, such as power outages, disconnecting phone service, and transportation interruptions. This study seeks to understand the performance and resilience of critical infrastructure systems...

In March 2019, Cyclone Idai hit central Mozambique and caused widespread damage, including businesses in the enterprise sector. We use panel data and a randomized controlled trial to estimate the impact of unconditional cash grants on micro enterprises and their recovery. We find that, on...

Natural disasters are on the rise worldwide. There are more and more intense natural disasters - which are defined to cause at least 100 deaths or to affect the basic survival needs of at least 1,000 people - resulting from floods and storms as well as droughts and heat waves. The Asia and the...

The standard approach to 'nowcast' disaster impacts, which relies on risk models, does not typically account for the compounding impact of various hazard phenomena (e.g., wind and rainfall associated with tropical storms). The alternative, traditionally, has been a team of experts sent to the...

This paper explores some implications of climate change for fiscal policies by assessing the impact of extreme weather events on public budgets. It presents selected case studies on the basis of available data for extreme weather events in the EU and the US that have occurred since 1990. We...

This paper examines the role of local lenders during recoveries from 33 hurricanes between 1999 and 2019, using a novel dataset of residential and commercial losses. I estimate the average effect of local finance and identify necessary conditions allowing lenders to mitigate employment shocks....