Book review: The economic impacts of natural disasters

"The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters." Edited by Debarati Guha-Sapir and Indhira Santos. Oxford Univesity Press. May 2013. --- Since the turn of the millennium, more than one million people have been killed and 2.3 billion others have been directly affected by natural disasters around the world. Economic Impacts presents six national case studies (Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Nicaragua, Japan and the Netherlands) and seeks to show how household surveys and country-level macroeconomic data can analyse and quantify the economic impact of disasters. Tom McDermott finds that this book provides a useful set of starting points both for policy debates and further research on the economics of natural disasters.