Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 11.
(refine search)
Working Paper
Household Finance after a Natural Disaster: The Case of Hurricane Katrina
Little is known about how affected residents are able to cope with the fi nancial shock of a natural disaster. We investigate the impact that flooding from a major US hurricane had on household finance. Spikes in credit card borrowing and overall delinquency rates for the most flooded residents are modest in size and short-lived. Greater flooding results in larger reductions in total debt. Lower debt levels appear to be driven by homeowners using flood insurance to repay their mortgages rather than to rebuild. Debt reductions are larger in census tracts where mortgages were likely to be ...
Journal Article
COVID-19: Fiscal Implications and Financial Stability in Developing Countries
The COVID-19 pandemic has been unlike any other crisis that we have experienced in that it hit all economies in the world at the same time, compromising the risk-sharing ability of nations. At the onset of the pandemic, the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) jointly pledged 1.16 trillion U.S. dollars to help emerging economies deal with COVID-19. Would this amount have been enough to preserve financial stability in a worst case scenario, and what were the fiscal implications of the pandemic? In this article we aim to answer these questions by documenting the size of the ...
Discussion Paper
Why Cash Transfers Are Good Policy in the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an exceptionally large and negative impact on economic activity around the world. We show that cash transfers can be a useful policy tool during a pandemic. Cash transfers mitigate consumption inequality induced by the pandemic and provide incentives to individuals who are most negatively affected by lockdown policies to adhere to them.
Working Paper
Household Financial Decision-Making After Natural Disasters: Evidence from Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Harvey brought more than four feet of rainfall to the Houston area in August 2017, leading to substantial flooding in many areas. Using regulatory data with detailed information on borrowing terms, we compare the borrowing response to Hurricane Harvey in parts of Houston that were more and less affected by flooding. We find that hurricane-affected households borrowed in a price-sensitive and time-limited manner, relying almost exclusively on promotional-rate credit cards and mortgage forbearance for new credit and repaying balances quickly. We find that conditional on flooding, ...
Working Paper
COVID-19: fiscal implications and financial stability in developing countries
The COVID-19 pandemic is unlike any other crisis that we have experienced in that it hit all economies in the world at the same time, compromising the risk sharing ability of nations. At the onset of the pandemic, the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) jointly pledged 1.16 trillion dollars to help emerging economies deal with COVID-19. Would this amount have been enough to preserve financial stability in a worst case scenario? What were the fiscal implications of the pandemic? In this paper we aim to answer these questions by documenting the size of the fiscal measures ...
Discussion Paper
U.S. Virgin Islands' Economy Hit Hard by Irma and Maria
In the ten months that have passed since Hurricanes Irma and Maria ravaged the Caribbean, much interest has been focused on Puerto Rico and its roughly 3.3 million American citizens, who weathered the largest blackout in U.S. history. However, far less attention has been paid to the U.S. Virgin Islands, even though St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. John, and a number of smaller islands suffered comparable devastation. This is partly attributable to their much smaller population: the U.S. Virgin Islands (“Virgin Islands”) is home to roughly 105,000 people—1/30th Puerto Rico’s population. Even ...
Report
Disaster (over-)insurance: the long-term financial and socioeconomic consequences of Hurricane Katrina
Federal disaster insurance?in the form of national flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other programs?is designed to nationally-distribute large geography-specific shocks like earthquakes and hurricanes. This study examines the local longrun net impact of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent policy response on impacted residents. Using a unique fifteen-year panel of five percent of adult Americans? credit reports, we find higher rates of insolvency and lower homeownership among inundated residents of New Orleans ten years after the storm, relative to their ...
Report
Credit Access and Mobility during the Flint Water Crisis
How do credit-constrained communities cope with the financial consequences of environmental crises? Beginning in April 2014, the residents of Flint, Michigan, were exposed to lead-contaminated water resulting from a series of governmental missteps. In this paper, we use the spatial distribution of lead and galvanized pipes in Flint to study the effect of the crisis on households’ financial health, including loan balances, repayment of outstanding debt, and Equifax Risk Scores, as well as on household mobility. We find that relatively more affected households, as measured by exposure to lead ...
Discussion Paper
Puerto Rico Post-Maria: Twelve Months of Hardship
Puerto Rico recently observed the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria—the most destructive storm to hit the Commonwealth since the San Felipe Segundo hurricane in 1928. Maria, combined with Hurricane Irma, which had glanced the island about two weeks prior, is estimated to have caused nearly 3,000 deaths and tens of billions of dollars of physical damage. Millions went without power for weeks, in most cases months. Basic services—water, sewage, telecommunications, medical care, schools—suffered massive disruptions. While it is difficult to assign a cost to all the suffering endured ...
Report
How Bad Are Weather Disasters for Banks?
Not very. We find that weather disasters over the last quarter century had insignificant or small effects on U.S. banks’ performance. This stability seems endogenous rather than a mere reflection of federal aid. Disasters increase loan demand, which offsets losses and actually boosts profits at larger banks. Local banks tend to avoid mortgage lending where floods are more common than official flood maps would predict, suggesting that local knowledge may also mitigate disaster impacts.