Natural disasters and economic growth: A meta-analysis

Using more than 750 estimates, we perform a meta-regression analysis of studies examining the relationship between economic growth per capita and natural disasters. The studies considered are very different with respect to the type of disasters considered, the sample of countries and time periods covered, model specification, estimators used and publication outlet. After extensive testing of our results, we conclude that there exists a negative genuine effect of natural disasters on economic growth which is increasing over the period of our analysis. Still, the magnitude differs across disasters included and country sample used. In particular, it turns out that climatic disasters in developing countries have the most significant adverse impact on economic growth. However, we also find some evidence that a part of the negative impact of natural disasters found in these studies is caused by a publication bias. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.