The Economics of Natural Disasters: an Overview of the Current Research Issues and Methods

In the last decades, we have observed a dramatic increase in the number of reported natural disasters and of their widespread human, economic, and environmental losses. This paper presents an overview of the current status of economic research on natural disasters. Firstly, it discusses key issues related to disaster definition, available datasets, and cost assessment. Then, it presents the main methodological approaches for estimating impacts and effects of natural disasters on the economy. Finally, it proposes a number of possible future research directions.