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Journal Article
Who needs downtowns, anyway?
Were historic business districts worth saving? City leaders thought so.
Journal Article
Opinion: the broken window fallacy
Working Paper
Weathering an Unexpected Financial Shock: The Role of Cash Grants on Household Finance and Business Survival
We estimate the causal effect of cash grants on household finance and business survival following a natural disaster. Disaster-affected individuals in high damage blocks with access to cash grants have 17% less credit card debt following the disaster than those without access to cash grants. Grants do not reduce negative financial outcomes, but do decrease migration. The grants play a role in mitigating the effects of the shock to businesses; resulting in 18% more establishments and 29% more employees post-disaster in disaster-affected neighborhoods where residents receive grants, relative to ...
Journal Article
Houston after the hurricanes
Working Paper
Reconstruction Multipliers
Following the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, financing of reconstruction by the Italian central government resulted in a sharp and unanticipated discontinuity in grants across municipalities that were ex-ante very similar. Using the emergency financing law as an instrument, we identify the causal effect of municipal government spending on local activity, controlling for the negative supply shock from the earthquake. In our estimates, this "reconstruction multiplier" is around unity, and we show that the grants provided public insurance. Economic activity contracted in municipalities that did not ...
Journal Article
Economic history : the Sea Island hurricane of 1893
Journal Article
Natural disasters and bankruptcy: a perspective
The implications of research on bankruptcy filings after hurricanes.
Working Paper
Natural Disasters, Climate Change, and Sovereign Risk
I investigate how natural disasters can exacerbate fiscal vulnerabilities and trigger sovereign defaults. I extend a standard sovereign default model to include disaster risk and calibrate it to a sample of seven Caribbean countries that are frequently hit by hurricanes. I find that disaster risk reduces government's ability to issue debt and that climate change further restricts government's access to financial markets. Next, I show that "disaster clauses", that provide debt-servicing relief, allow governments to borrow more and preserve government's access to financial markets, amid rising ...