The insurance coverage for natural disasters remains low in many exposed areas, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. Reduced availability or unaffordability of insurance are commonly identified as the primary causes for this low insurance coverage. The French overseas departments...

Prevention policies against flood, such as dams or levees, are commonly designed by local jurisdictions and for most they exert externalities on neighboring jurisdictions. We study a model in which each jurisdiction chooses its collective prevention effort depending on the flood risk and on the...

Depending on their causality, ground movements can be stated as natural disasters and insured by the French natural disasters insurance system. This article analyzes the inventoried claims and compensations from 1995 to 2006 and explains the limits of this approach. It assesses the ground...

The willingness of households to pay for prevention against industrial risks can be revealed by real estate markets. By using very rich microdata, we study housing prices in the vicinity of hazardous industries near three important French cities. We show that the impact of hazardous plants on...

Switzerland has had a long standing surplus on its current account. But over the past 15 years that surplus has surged to levels unmatched by nearly any other OECD country at any point. This paper looks at the surplus from a balance of payments vantage point as well as from the optic of the...

French Abstract: Les départements d'Outre-mer (Dom) sont plus exposés aux risques naturels que la France métropolitaine. Pourtant, seuls 52 % des ménages des Dom ont souscrit pour leur résidence principale une assurance habitation, qui inclut obligatoirement la couverture des catastrophes...

French Abstract: Le prix des logements peut diminuer du fait de la proximité d'installations industrielles. Cet effet dépend de la perception du risque par les riverains et est donc potentiellement modifié par des événements changeant la perception du risque, tels que les plans de...

This is an expanded English summary of a French report that was prepared for the French Council of Economic Advisers (Conseil d'analyse économique). The full text French report, "Les risques majeurs et l'action publique", can be downloaded from the Council's website or from the last author's...