Austrian insights on the limits of central planning, the pervasiveness of knowledge problems, and the importance of the entrepreneur in coordinating social change have yielded substantive contributions to the literature on how individuals and communities respond to both natural and unnatural, or...

This paper introduces the origins and scope of humanitarian economics, a vibrant field of study and practice that deals with the economics and political economy of war, disaster, and humanitarian action. To illustrate the field's scientific and policy relevance, the paper draws on various...

Predicting catastrophes sometimes involves heavy-tailed distributions with no mean, eluding proactive policy since expected cost-benefit based analysis fails. We study US government counterterrorism policy, given heightened risk of terrorism. However, terrorism involves human behavior. We...

This paper tests some existing theories developed over the past 25 years on corporate demand for insurance. Using a unique dataset of 1,809 large U.S. corporations it provides the first empirical analysis that compares corporate demand for standard property insurance and for catastrophe coverage...

Disaster planning for health care providers following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and, more recently, Hurricane Katrina, focuses on preparing hospitals and other emergency services to respond to victims' medical needs. But little attention has been paid to the challenges that...

This paper uses cross-country data from 1965 to 2008 to examine how ethnic heterogeneity affects the probability of technological disasters. Estimation results showed that ethnic heterogeneity increased the probability of technological disasters.

Greenhouse gas policies confront the trade-off between the costs of reducing emissions and the benefits of avoided climate change. The risk of uncertain and potentially irreversible catastrophes is an important issue related to the latter, and one that has not yet been well incorporated into...

The perception of risks resulting from climate change is a key factor in motivating individual adaptation and prevention behavior, as well as for the support of climate policy measures. Using a generalized ordered logit approach and drawing on a unique data set originating from two surveys...

We estimate whether risk preferences are affected by traumatic events by using a unique survey of Sri Lankan twins which contains information on individual's exposure to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, participation as a combatant in the civil war, validated measures of mental health and risk...