Natural Disaster, Poverty, and Development: An Introduction

This paper introduces the special issue, “Natural Disaster, Poverty, and Development.” We examine the macro-level nexus between natural disasters and poverty, discuss prospects for formal insurance against disasters, and review the micro-development literature on informal insurance against risk. We develop a conceptual framework for microeconomic analyses on the disaster–poverty nexus, highlighting asset loss/recovery and asset-dependent private coping, disaster aid and its link with private mechanisms, and broad/persistent impacts of disasters and coping responses. We synthesize the main findings of the nine articles, revealing the critical importance of the complementarity among markets, governments, and communities for successful pro-poor disaster policies.