Natural disasters and the economy

The Political Economy of “Natural” Disasters

Natural disasters occur in a political space. Although events beyond our control may trigger a disaster, the level of government preparedness and response greatly determines the extent of suffering incurred by the affected population. We use a political economy model of disaster prevention, supported by case studies, that explains why some governments prepare well for disasters and others do no...

Impacts of Natural Disasters on a Dynamic Economy

This paper presents a modeling framework for macroeconomic growth dynamics; it is motivated by recent attempts to formulate and study “integrated models” of the coupling between natural and socio-economic phenomena. The challenge is to describe the interfaces between human activities and the functioning of the earth system. We examine the way that this interface works in the presence of endogen...

poverty and natural disasters

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Natural Disasters

Disasters and Development: Natural Disasters, Credit Constraints and Economic Growth

We demonstrate, using a simple two-period equilibrium model of the economy, the potential effects of extreme event occurrences such as natural or humanitarian disasters on economic growth over the mediumto long-term. In particular, we focus on the effect of such shocks on investment. We examine two polar cases; an unconstrained economy where agents have access to perfect capital markets, versus...