Risk Analysis, Vol. 35, No. 6, 2015 DOI: 10.1111/risa.

12372

Macroeconomics of Natural Disasters: Strengths and

Weaknesses of Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature

Peter A. G. van Bergeijk1, and Sara Lazzaroni2

We use the case of the macroeconomic impact of natural disasters to analyze strengths and
weaknesses of meta-analysis in an emerging research field. Macroeconomists have published
on this issue since 2002 (we identified 60 studies to date). The results of the studies are contra-
dictory and therefore the need to synthesize the available research is evident. Meta-analysis
is a useful method in this field. An important aim of our article is to show how one can use
the identified methodological characteristics to better understand the robustness and impor-
tance of new findings. To provide a comparative perspective, we contrast our meta-analysis
and its findings with the major influential research synthesis in the field: the IPCCs 2012 spe-
cial report Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change
Adaptation. We show that the IPCC could have been more confident about the negative eco-
nomic impact of disasters and more transparent on inclusion and qualification of studies, if
it had been complemented by a meta-analysis. Our meta-analysis shows that, controlling for
modeling strategies and data set, the impact of disasters is significantly negative. The evidence
is strongest for direct costs studies where we see no difference between our larger sample and
the studies included in the IPCC report. Direct cost studies and indirect cost studies differ
significantly, both in terms of the confidence that can be attached to a negative impact of
natural disasters and in terms of the sources of heterogeneity of the findings reported in the
primary studies.

KEY WORDS: IPCC; macroeconomics; meta-analysis

1. INTRODUCTION higher frequency and intensity of natural disasters

and, consequently, the empirical literature on the
The macroeconomic analysis of natural disasters
macroeconomic impact of natural disasters has
is a fairly recent branch of economic research.(1,2)
grown substantially.(4) Our systematic review helps
For a long time, this topic was mainly investigated
to identify two substrands in the literature. The first
by the technical sciences and other disciplines of
set of studies focuses on disaster direct costs, that is
social sciences.(3) Whenever economics was in-
economic damages and number of people reported
volved, the analysis was typically microeconomic
affected and/or killed when a natural hazard occurs.
and/or case specific. This changed, however and
The second set of studies concentrates on disaster
macroeconomists became involved due to the
indirect (and secondary) costs quantified in terms of
the effects on GDP/income. Note that this distinction
1 ISS Erasmus University, Kortenaerkade 12, Hague 2581 AX, The
is important because the two strands of literature
Netherlands.
2 Department deal with costs that originate at different moments in
of Economics, University of Bologna, Piazza Scar-
avilli 2, Bologna, 40126, Italy. time: upon natural hazards occurrence in the case of
Address correspondence to Peter van Bergeijk, ISS Erasmus direct costs and after the disaster has occurred in the
University, Kortenaerkade 12, Hague 2581 AX, The Nether- case of indirect costs. In both sets of empirical stud-
lands; tel: +31704260517; bergeijk@iss.nl. ies, the disaster effect of interest can be summarized

1050 0272-4332/15/0100-1050$22.00/1 
C 2015 Society for Risk Analysis
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature
by the estimated t-value. The t-value captures the
sign (positive or negative) of the estimated disaster
effect and its level of significance (the probability to
reject the hypothesis that the estimated effect is zero
when it is in fact true). For example, if the t-value of
the disaster effect estimated in regression i in study j
is lower than 1.65 (two-tailed t-value threshold for
10% level of significance) it means that, once other
factors have been accounted for, the authors found a
negative effect of disasters and can be 90% confident
in rejecting the hypothesis that the estimated disaster
effect is nil.
Fig. 1 reports the median and average t-value
of 60 macroeconometric studies (our primary stud-
ies) that were identified in a systematic review as
part of a meta-analysis.(5) 3 Fig. 1 reports the t-values
for the association between disasters and macroeco-
nomic impact distinguishing studies on disaster direct
and indirect costs. One of the key messages of Fig. 1
is that the findings of the available econometric stud-
ies tend to disagree regarding this fundamental rela-
tionship given the large divergence for both sign and
statistical significance of the impact of natural disas-
ters. For disaster direct costs studies, the average t-
value in our sample is 5.9 with a standard deviation
of 8.2. For disaster indirect costs studies, the average
t-value in our sample is 1.4 with a standard devia-
tion of 5.4.
The aims of this article are threefold. First, to
assess if the two substrands have to be considered
separately, or as a unique body of literature on dis-
aster macroeconomic costs. Second, to uncover the
methodological sources for disagreement about the
effects of natural disasters. Third, to draw lessons
from the heterogeneity of the findings of the primary
studies. We will do so by contrasting two methodolo-
gies: a meta-analysis and an authoritative selective
review of literature.
Our research is motivated by the simultaneous
availability of our meta-analysis and the important
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) spe-
cial report Managing the Risks of Extreme Events
and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation
(henceforth the IPCC report).(6) In 2012, Working
Groups I and II of the IPCC4 jointly produced this
report aiming, inter alia, at synthesizing the available
3 Upon the advice of the referees we have updated and extended
this study that included 22 studies only.
4 The IPCC was created in 1988 with the general mandate to
assess in a comprehensive, objective, and transparent manner
all the relevant scientific, technical, and socioeconomic informa-
tion to contribute in understanding the scientific basis of risk of
1051
economic evidence on the effects of natural disasters
using a traditional review of the literature. The IPCC
report is a selective survey of the literature that em-
phasizes what the authors of the survey deem reliable
and important. The objectivity of the survey is not
based on full inclusivity of all available literature, but
on a rigorous review and peer-review process that is
a hallmark of the IPCC process.5 In this article, we
want to compare the merits of the two methodolo-
gies and their strengths and weaknesses in research
synthesis.6 We use our own work (meta-analysis) be-
cause this is the earliest meta-analysis in the field7
and we provide a critical self-assessment. The IPCC
report is a worthy benchmark because substantial in-
tellectual and human resources were available for
this report, thus any issue that occurs with the IPCC
work can be expected to emerge in reviews that are
done with less rigor and resources.
As in the meta-analysis, the IPCC report ac-
knowledges the disagreement in the literature. IPCC
assigns only medium confidence8 to the prevalence
of a negative economic impact. Indeed, one of the
key issues in this emerging literature is about the sign
of the disaster impact and the confidence that we can
have in this sign (its significance). The usual approach
in meta-analysis for a field that is more mature would
be to estimate the actual average size effect (the
meta-effect), but the studies available until 2013 do
not allow estimating the size effect for two reasons.
First, in the primary studies disaster direct costs are
measured both in monetary and nonmonetary terms
human-induced climate change, the potential impacts, and the
adaptation and mitigation options.(6: vii) It is coordinated by
Working Groups I and II, respectively dealing with physical sci-
ence basis of climate change and climate change impacts, adap-
tation, and vulnerability.
5 We thank an anonymous referee for this point.
6 Presently our data set comprises 60 primary studies until De-
cember 2013 for a total of 1,688 parameter estimates. Because
the IPCC report covers only studies until May 2011, we would
like to point out that different results in the meta-analysis could
be driven by more recent studies that logically were not included
in the report.
7 Our working paper has been available online since April 2013.
While being in the peer-review process for this journal another
meta-analysis on indirect costs studies has become available on-
line as a corrected proof for publication.(7)
8 In the IPCC report the degree of certainty in key findings
is based on authors evaluation of scientific knowledge using
the qualitative concept of confidence. Confidence can be low,
medium, or high, depending on the authors evaluation of the
level (low, medium, high) of agreement and type, amount, and
consistency (limited, medium, robust) of the evidence included
in the literature reviewed.
1052 van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni

Fig. 1. Empirical studies on the macroeconomic impact of natural disasters. [section symbol] Extreme minimum t-values were cut. *Studies
analyzing both disaster direct and indirect cost. [degree symbol] Studies in IPCC (2012).
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature
and therefore we need a dimensionless parameter
in order to make useful comparisons. Second, the
functional forms used in the primary studies dif-
fer and the data necessary to calculate elasticities
are not always reported. We will therefore follow
a somewhat different approach and present the
meta-sign and meta-confidence in order to analyze
how sign and confidence issues are tackled in the
two methodologies (narrative literature review vs.
meta-analysis). Meta-sign and meta-confidence will
then refer, respectively, to the synthesized cumula-
tive sign and level of significance of the estimated
disaster effect across studies and samples in the
macroeconomic empirical literature.
We use sign and confidence because we are in-
terested in understanding if natural disasters have a
negative/insignificant/positive effect at the macroe-
conomic level. Note that we are interested in confi-
dence (significance) rather than preciseness. To be
clear, one may be confident about an imprecise es-
timate (large standard error) if it is sufficiently far
away from zero.9 Within this framework we are also
able to include primary studies that do not report
t-values and/or standard errors but do report coef-
ficients and levels of significance. Fig. 2 illustrates
that using the reported significance levels increases
our sample by 6.4% (4.6%) for direct (indirect) costs
studies.10 As will become clear, a focus on meta-
sign and meta-confidence makes it possible to reach
firmer conclusions than the IPCC did.11
The IPCC report relates the disagreement
between the primary studies to limitations in the
analyses, such as the lack of a counterfactual or
9 An estimates precision (calculated as the reciprocal of the stan-
dard error) depends on methodological choices in the primary
studies (empirical strategy and model specification) and is re-
flected in t-values through the regression coefficient because t-
values are calculated as the ratio between the coefficient and the
standard error.
10 Excluding these observations reduces the share of significantly
negative parameters from 73.5% to 72.5% for direct cost studies
and increases the share of significantly negative parameters from
42% to 43.4% for indirect cost studies.
11 This is not generally the case. Often, the sign of a relationship is
unambiguously estimated in a literature. An example is Disdier
and Head,(8) who investigate the size of the distance effect in the
gravity model of international trade. The sign in these models is
always negative (larger distance reduces trade), but the interest-
ing question is how this distance effect develops over time and
therefore the meta size effect needs to be estimated. Our use of
t-values can only be relevant when a literature is characterized
by disagreement about the sign. Even then we would prefer to
work with a meta-size effect, but as argued in the text that is not
(yet) a good option in our case.
1053
the failure to account for the roles of the informal
sector, insurance, foreign aid, and disaster type.(6: 265)
This is the second issue for which we want to make
a comparison: Can meta-analysis shed more light
on the methodological drivers of the heterogeneity
in reported results? Again, we compare our 2013
meta-analysis and findings with the IPCC report in
order to discuss strengths and weaknesses of the two
research synthesis methods. Importantly, disagree-
ment according to the meta-analysis appears to be
related to methodological choices by the authors of
the primary studies (including time period, countries
coverage, and econometric methods).
The remainder of the article is structured as fol-
lows. Section 2 provides motivation for and expla-
nation of our meta-analysis, focusing on how the
methodology is presently being applied and the iden-
tification of the primary studies. Section 3 presents
the IPCC report as a benchmark for comparison of
meta-analysis results. Section 4 shows the results of
meta-analysis and IPCC report. Section 5 compares
the strengths and weaknesses of meta-analysis and
narrative review of literature.
2. META-ANALYSIS: MOTIVATION
AND IDENTIFICATION
2.1. Why Meta-Analysis?
This article takes stock of the emerging liter-
ature on the macroeconomics of natural disasters,
not only because of the relevance of the topic of the
costs of natural disasters, but also and especially in
order to discuss the use of meta-analysis as a tool to
synthesize knowledge in an emerging and politically
sensitive field and, relatedly, to compare this to a
traditional review of the literature. This is important
because of the apparent disagreement between the
primary studies. Meta-analysis is a research method
that enables to synthesize and summarize previously
obtained empirical findings for a research question
in a quantitative and statistically rigorous fashion,
to present the results of several studies in a coherent
framework, and ultimately to estimate a meta-effect
across studies.(9,10) In our meta-analysis, the goal
is not to uncover the average or meta-effect that
could be derived from the contradicting studies
(compare DeCicca and Kenkel(11) ), but instead
to find out the meta sign and significance. In
our opinion, a modest goal is more appropriate in
this emerging field where we have a great many
definitions of disaster impact and strength, many
1054
functional forms, different (sub) populations of the
data, and different estimation methods. Our second
goal is to disentangle the impact of methodological
choices and research strategies on the results re-
ported by the primary studies. We use a somewhat
broader approach to meta-regression analysis and
provide descriptive statistics of several aspects of the
literature so as to quantify and qualify results of the
body of primary studies. The bibliometric aspects
of the literature are important because these help us
to identify differences in country income levels, time
periods, considered control variables, and also in the
frequency with which methodologies and statistical
techniques have been applied as well as the need
to interact and extend sets of explanatory variables
covered by the literature.
From the start it is clear that the disagreement
between the primary studies in our sample may be
caused by three main sources.12
1. Methodological differences: Behind the dis-
agreement may be heterogeneity in the data
sources, the samples (country coverage and re-
search period), the econometric specifications,
and the estimation procedures.13 In such a
context, a meta-analysis of the reported results
can be used to shed light on the impact that
the methodology exerts on the results reported
in the primary studies. Meta-analysis thus al-
lows us to identify which methodological char-
12 Sampling error is expected to play a minor role in macroeco-
nomics because the sample may include the entire relevant
population.(8)
13 Economists also refer to structural heterogeneity due to the
selection of subpopulations and method heterogeneity due to
measurement and statistical methods.(8)
van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni
Fig. 2. T-values and reported levels of signifi-
cance for studies on disaster direct (1) and in-
direct (2) costs.
acteristics are associated with finding a specific
result (in our case we have three results:
[a] significantly negative, [b] insignificant, and
[c] significantly positive).
2. Preliminary state of findings: In the case of
the macroeconomics of natural disasters, the
meta-analysis is extra useful because, as in
any emerging scientific field, many findings
are preliminary and often contradictory due
to the process of finding out the true effect.
Fig. 1 illustrates this process: it plots the mean
and median t-value per study, which are or-
dered by year of publication. A fluctuating pat-
tern emerges because typically the scientific
debate on new issues is characterized by inde-
pendent replications (both based on the orig-
inal data set of the primary studies and on
alternative data sets and samples), updates
(when more data become available because
new events occur), and innovations (of mod-
els and tests) that all may result in alternative
findings.14 Typically, many such contradictions
occur during the years in which a new scientific
field emerges. Meta-analysis is a tool that can
14 Aclear example of this process is the replication study made
by Reed and Mercer(12) of the study by Toya and Skidmore.(13)
Reed and Mercer update and extend the disaster data and per-
form a number of robustness checks to tackle truncation bias
and skewedness of disaster data, introduce country and time
fixed effects, and cluster standard errors. Contrary to the original
study by Toya and Skidmore, Reed and Mercer find that eco-
nomic development variables (income, educational attainment,
size of the government, openness, and financial-sector develop-
ment) are generally speaking not significant. The only reportedly
significant effect is that natural disasters trigger larger economic
losses for wealthier countries.
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature
be used to distill an overall finding from the re-
ported empirical results of the primary studies
as well as measures of statistical confidence.
3. Intrinsic motivation and bias of the re-
searchers: The effect of natural disasters is an
important topic with substantial societal and
political relevance and therefore researchers
may be driven by idealistic or ideological moti-
vations to report those results that fit their con-
ceptions of the importance of the problem and
the need to find solutions, as well as the kind of
instruments that should be usedand, impor-
tantly, may ignore results that contradict their
view of the world.15 A meta-analysis is more
objective and transparent than the traditional
review of literature because it enables the re-
searcher to systematically study the sources of
variation in the quantitative results reported in
the primary studies.
As mentioned before, we do not analyze the co-
efficients that have been estimated in the primary
studies but rather the sign and significance of those
coefficients. 16 First, measurement in the primary
studies is not uniform: some studies focus on human
capital damages in terms of people reported affected
and/or killed, whereas other studies concentrate on
monetary damages in terms of economic damages
as a share of GDP and/or and GDP/income varia-
tions triggered by natural disasters. Second, the func-
tional forms used in the primary studies (log-log, log-
linear, linear-log) often differ much between studies.
Elasticities could be calculated with simple formu-
las and using sample means,(17) but this is not always
possible because the necessary key statistics are
sometimes not reported. Indeed, primary studies
generally report descriptive statistics for the full
sample considered, whereas within the same study
authors often present estimations on a variety of
subsamples (e.g., a subsample for OECD countries
or a subsample for earthquakes) for which specific
average characteristics are not provided. To over-
come this limitation it would have been possible
to estimate elasticities using only the regression re-
sults based on full samples, but there is a clear cost,
15 Compare Doucouliagos and Paldam(14) on development aid.
Similar issues are here at play because, for example, disaster vul-
nerability is an important factor that has been used to stop LDC
graduation (see Fialho(15) ).
16 The cost of the procedure is of course that we are unable to ar-
rive at the precise and exact parameter values that are often nec-
essary to populate economic models.(16)
1055
namely, the loss of additional information on the ef-
fect of different sample characteristics (size, decades,
and countries included) on the results. Because one
of the goals of our 2013 meta-analysis is precisely to
understand how sample design influences the results
in the primary studies, we prefer to avoid this im-
portant cost. In the words of Disdier and Head:(8)
different estimates often differ in terms of sample
period, method, etc., and therefore within-study vari-
ation . . . can be used to assess the importance of such
variables.
2.2. Meta Data Set
In the meta-analysis, we identified 60 macroe-
conomic studies up to and including December
2013 that empirically assess the effects of nat-
ural disasters in an extensive search. We used
Econlit and Google Scholar and broad keyword
listings with the following terminologies: natural
disasters, impact, growth, economic develop-
ment, development, killed, affected, insti-
tutions, and econometric.17 We considered only
English-language studies, except for Moreno and
Cardona,(20) written in Spanish and included in
the IPCC report, so as to enable the inclusion in
the meta-analysis of all suitable macroeconomet-
ric studies considered in the IPCC report.(6) Four
studies(2124) could not be included in the meta-
analysis because key statistical characteristics were
not reported.18 Similarly, studies that did not include
a variable for disaster occurrence (disaster variable)
in the econometric analysis were automatically ex-
cluded (e.g., Baker and Bloom,(25) Okuyama and
Sahin,(26) Toya and Skidmore(13) ). Finally, we were
helped by referees of this journal and participants of
conferences where we presented the meta-analysis as
they identified missing studies. All in all we were able
to collect 1,688 parameter estimates (significance lev-
els) as well as the methodological characteristics
17 Literature reviews were not included in our meta-analysis. Be-
cause we are interested in collecting t-statistics (significance
levels) of the variables considered, empirical works using vec-
tor autoregressive models, input-output, and computable gen-
eral equilibrium (CGE) analyses could not be included since
the former reported the impulse response functions only and
not the short-and long-term coefficients (Fomby et al.(18) and
Cunado and Ferreira(19) are an exception, duly included in the
meta-analysis) while the results of input-output and CGE analy-
ses by design do not provide the standard errors or t-values that
we need in our meta-analysis.
18 We contacted these authors by e-mail asking for additional in-
formation, but received no reply.
1056
of individual regressions reported in the primary
studies.
The methodology of the primary studies shows
many and obvious similarities, basically because all
studies in our sample deal with the macroeconomics
of disasters from multicountry and/or multievent per-
spectives. Note that in line with the IPCC report we
also include local studies (considering one country
only) as long as they follow a macroeconometric ap-
proach. Behind these similarities important differ-
ences exist, however, as the empirical literature can
be subdivided into two substrands on the basis of the
key variable of interest.(3) The first variable is the
direct cost, typically quantified by disaster economic
damages, number of people affected, and/or casu-
alties. The second variable is the indirect cost that
identifies the second-order economic effect of nat-
ural disasters on GDP; this effect is indirect be-
cause it is based on the (estimated) impact of de-
struction of the capital stock, loss of labor force,
and a reduction of actual working and production
days.
It is useful to distinguish these two approaches.
The first approach (Model type 1) tries to under-
stand how socioeconomic factors influence the ef-
fects of disasters focusing on the direct costs of dis-
asters, whereas the second approach (Model type 2)
focuses on the indirect impact of natural disasters on
GDP (average income in local studies). Model type 1
studies consider only periods in which disasters actu-
ally occurred, whereas Model type 2 studies compare
periods in which disasters took place with periods in
which countries did not experience natural disasters.
Both model types use a specific disaster variable
that accounts for the occurrence of the phenomenon.
The disaster variable can be a dummy, a disaster fre-
quency, intensity, and/or (especially in Model type
2 studies) a variable describing the number of peo-
ple affected or killed or the damages reported in
case the disaster occurred (direct costs). Hence, the
variables accounting for number of affected or killed
and damages are a disaster impact variable in Model
type 1 and a disaster indicator in Model type 2.
The two models use common sets of explanatory
variables.
Direct and indirect impact studies are highly
interrelated(2: 285) in the minds of both the produc-
ers and users of the research findings19 and are
each on their own merits relevant for policy (see
19 Cross-referencingbetween Model type 1 and Model type 2 stud-
ies and vice versa occurs regularly in this literature.
van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni
Appendix A). Therefore, our meta-analysis also in-
vestigates if these strands can be considered as a
unique field of research or if they are character-
ized by significantly different findings (controlling for
other methodological characteristics).
In our sample, 31 of the primary studies deal
with direct costs, 24 deal with indirect secondary
costs, and 5 studies consider both direct and indirect
costs.(2731)
3. THE IPCC REPORT
The objective of the IPCC report is to provide
a comprehensive assessment of the literature on cli-
mate change (the usual domain of IPCC) with a
focus on disaster recovery, risk management, and
mitigation up to May 2011. The IPCC report de-
fines the impact of climate extremes and disasters on
economies, societies and ecosystems . . . as the dam-
age costs and losses of economic assets or stocks, as
well as consequential indirect effects on economic
flows, such as on GDP or consumption(6: 264) (italic
in the original). So as in our meta-analysis, a catego-
rization into direct and indirect costs is made, explic-
itly pointing out that the categories are rarely fully
exclusive, and items or activities can have elements
in all categories.(6: 264) Disaster coststhe core re-
search question analyzed in the meta-analysisare
discussed in Chapters 4 (Section 5), 5 (Section 5.2.1),
6 (Section 1), and 8 (Section 2.1). Fig. 3 provides an
overview of the studies in the IPCC report by type of
analysis.
Two main research questions are considered in
the report. The first IPCC research question relates
to the sign of the impact on economic development;
IPCC reaches the conclusion that it is negative, with
medium confidence. Table I lists the studies cited in
the IPCC report finding a negative or positive im-
pact on growth in the short and long term. Com-
bining Table I with the correspondent studies in the
meta-analysis allows us to make two observations.
First, there is high prevalence of nonmacroecono-
metric studies20 in the IPCC information set. Sec-
ond, for the period covered by the IPCC (up to and
20 Some macroeconometric studies are included in the non-
macroeconometric category due to their unsuitability for the
meta-analysis: Hochrainer(32) uses as dependent variable the
difference between projected and observed GDP in five years
post event instead of GDP level/growth, Raddatz(33) relies on
a VAR analysis, and Benson and Clay,(21) Jaramillo,(22) Simons
and Sutter(23,24) did not report the number of observations in the
regression results and were thus excluded.
 Table I. Nature of the Impact of Natural Disasters on Economic Development (GDP/IncomeModel Type 2)

Studies in the IPCC Report (Until May 2011) Studies in the Meta-Analysis (Until December 2013)a

Timeb Negative Positive Negative Positive

Short term (<5 years)
Benson and Clay (1998,c Albala-Bertrand (1993)d Caselli and Malhotra (2004) Noy and Vu (2010)
2000,d 2003,d 2004d ) Skidmore and Toya (2002) Tavares (2004) Vu and Hammes (2010)
Kellenberg and Mobarak Caselli and Malhotra (2004) Heger et al. (2008) Cunado and Ferreira (2011)
(2008) Hallegatte and Ghil (2007)d Noy (2009) Ahlerup (2013)
Cuny (1983)d Hsiang (2010)
Otero and Marti (1995)d Moreno and Cardona (2011)
Charveriat (2000)d Strobl (2011)
Crowards (2000)d Bergholt and Lujala (2012)
ECLAC (2003)d Strobl (2012)
Mechler (2004)d Von Peter et al. (2012)
Raddatz (2009)d Zylberberg (2012)
Noy (2009) Deryugina (2013)
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature

Okuyama and Sahin (2009)d Felbermayr and Groschl

Cavallo and Noy (2010)d (2013a)
Fomby et al. (2013)
Ghimire and Ferreira (2013)
McDermott et al. (2013)

Mixed evidence
Murlidharan and Shah (2003)
Jackson (2013)

Long tem (5 years)
Noy and Noualsri (2007) Noy and Noualsri (2007) Ahlerup (2013)
Hochrainer (2009)d Fisker (2012) Kim (2010)
Jaramillo (2009)c Deryugina (2013) Cunado and Ferreira (2011)
Felbermayr and Groschl Skidmore and Toya (2002)
(2013b)
McDermott et al. (2013)

Mixed evidence Mixed evidence

World Bank and UN (2010)d Loayza et al. (2012)
for very severe disasters

Note: [ ] Is a Model type 1 study.

a In the table, we report meta-analysis studies according to the clear prevalence of significant negative/positive results.
b In the meta-analysis we also considered medium term (24 years); here we incorporate the medium-term studies in the short-term studies.
c Identifies a study that is in the IPCC information set but not in the meta-analysis due to missing information.
d Stands for reports, books, noneconometric studies, or econometric studies that could not be included in the analysis because using a different model type.

Source: Authors elaborations from IPCC (2012: 264269, 344345, 443445), Sections 4.5, 6.1, and 8.2.1.
1057
1058
including May 2011), we note that some readily
available macroeconometric studies were not in-
cluded in the report.
The second research question deals with the
nexus between development and disaster impact.
The IPCC report states with high confidence that dis-
aster economic losses are higher in developed coun-
tries and that fatalities and economic losses as a
share of GDP are higher in developing countries.
Again we can note in Table II the prevalence of non-
macroeconometic studies in the IPCC information
set.21
Section 5.5.2 of the IPCC report cites studies that
focus on disaster impact at the local level (Table III).
Nonmacroeconometric analyses prevail, but in this
case this is rightly motivated by the nature of the re-
search question: the impact of natural disasters at the
local level can be better analyzed with input-output
and CGE models.
4. META ANALYSIS
4.1. Descriptive Statistics
The variability in the level of significance of the
mean/median t-statistic across the selected studies is
very high (Fig. 1). This could be driven by different
choices in the source of disaster data and construc-
21 Tothe extent that the classification of countries in OECD/non-
OECD categories mirrors the classification in devel-
oped/developing economies, the meta-analysis also tests
these relationships using a wider set of studies and controlling
for their methodological characteristics.
van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni
Fig. 3. Studies (76) on disaster impacts in the IPCC report
by type of analysis.
Source: Authors elaborations from IPCC (2012: 264269,
317, 344345, 443445). *This category includes reports,
books, and studies with descriptive analyses.
tion of the disaster data set (years and countries),
model specification, and estimation technique. Be-
fore moving to the meta-regression analysis in the
next section, we first compute composite t-statistics
for some of the variables that we will use as mod-
erator variables. By broadening the sample and us-
ing the information contained in the samples and
subsamples of the primary studies, we can draw
conclusions with respect to meta-sign and meta-
significance.
Following previous meta-analyses(3436) we cal-
culate the composite t-statistic as:
ti
tC = N (0, 1) . (1)
N
In light of the variability of the number of obser-
vations in the selected studies, it is important to fol-
low Diebel and Wooster,(37) Djankov and Murrell,(38)
and Mebratie and van Bergeijk(36) and calculate a
weighted composite statistic:
n
k=1 wktk
TWC =  N (0, 1) , (2)
n
w
k=1 k
2
where wk is the weight assigned to the nth t-value in
the meta data set calculated as the reciprocal of the
number of t-values from the same study, so that each
study is equally represented. This is only one alterna-
tive to assess the robustness of the findings. Table IV
presents the composite and weighted t-statistics of all
robustness checks. Calculations were also conducted
excluding extremely high t-values (|t|>10) with a
remaining number of included observations of 538
t-values for Model type 1 and 875 t-values for Model
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature 1059

Table II. Nexus Between Development and Disaster Vulnerability

Findings Studies in the IPCC Report (Until May 2011)

Fatality rates and economic losses as share Wildavski (1988)a Hallegatte et al. (2007)a
of GDP higher in developing countries Albala Bertrand (1993)a Parry et al. (2007)a
Burton et al. (1993)a Raddatz (2007)a,b
Otero and Marti (1995)a Toya and Skidmore (2007)a
Tol and Leek (1999)a World Bank (2007)a
Charveriat (2000)a Heger et al. (2008)
Crowards (2000)a Nicholls (2008)a
Murlidharan and Shah (2001) Raschky (2008)
World Bank (2000);a IPCC (2001)a Schumacher and Strobl (2008)c
ECLAC (2003)a Cavallo and Noy (2009)a
Del Ninno et al. (2003)a,b Hallegatte and Dumas (2009)a
Owens et al. (2003)a,b Hochrainer (2009)a
Skoufias (2003)a,b Ibarraran et al. (2009)a
Benson and Clay (2004)a,b Loayza et al. (2009)
Mechler (2004)a Noy (2009)
Rasmussen (2004) Raddatz (2009)a
UNDP (2004)a Cardona et al. (2010)a,b
Brooks et al. (2005)a IFRC (2010)a,b
Kahn (2005) Lal (2010)a
McKenzie et al. (2006)a Rodriguez-Oreggia et al. (2010)a
OBrien et al. (2006)a World Bank and UN (2010)a
Thomalla et al. (2006)a

Wealthier countries experience higher total UNDP (2004)a Cummins and Mahul (2009)a
economic and insured losses DFID (2005)a UNISDR (2009a
Birch and Wachter (2006)a Swiss Re (2010)a
OBrien et al. (2006)a Cavallo and Noy (2010)a
Cutter and Finch (2008)a CRED (2010)a
Kellenberg and Mobarak (2008) Pelham et al. (2011)a

Fatalities decrease with rising income Kahn (2005) Nicholls et al. (2008)a
Bouwer et al. (2007)a World Bank and UN (2010)a
Toya and Skidmore (2007)a

a Stands for reports, books, noneconometric studies, or econometric studies that could not be included in the analysis because using a
different model type.
b Stands for studies that were cited to back a particular policy option.
c The study in the IPCC report is the working paper version whereas in the meta-analysis we reported the published version.

Source: Authors elaborations from IPCC (2012: 264269, 344345, 443445), Sections 4.5, 6.1, and 8.2.1.

type 2. Table IV reports composite t-values distin-
guished by model type, the use of the EM-DAT
database, and the inclusion of OECD/non-OECD
countries. Moreover, we compare composite t-values
for published and unpublished studies to consider
study quality and/or possible publication biases. Fi-
nally, we present composite t-values for studies in-
cluded/excluded by the IPCC report.
Table IV illustrates the need for more than
one weighting scheme and checking for outliers. For
example, the weighted statistics are in most cases
lower than the unweighted ones. Similarly, all com-
posite t-statistics are significant even excluding out-
liers, but they decrease substantially when we use the
median, suggesting that outliers play some role in de-
termining the sample disaster outcome. Most impor-
tant, bivariate analysis suggests with high confidence
that disasters have a negative and significant effect
(all the composite t-values have negative sign and are
significant at 1%). We can be more confident than
IPCC both because we aggregate the evidence avail-
able in the primary studies considered by IPCC and
because we cover more primary studies that deal with
the macroeconomic impact of disasters.
1060
Table III. Studies Estimating the Cost of Managing Disasters at the Local Level
Studies in the IPCC report (Until May 2011)
West and Lenze (1994)a
Rose et al. (1997)a
Okuyama (2004)a
Haimes et al. (2005)a
Rose and Liao (2005)a
Smith and McCarty (2006)a
Tsuchiya et al. (2007)a
Hallegatte (2008)a
Strobl (2008)b
Noy and Vu (2010)
Rodriguez-Oreggia et al. (2010)a
a Stands for reports, books, noneconometric studies, or econometric studies that could not be included in the analysis because using a
different model type.
b The study in the IPCC report is the working paper version whereas in the meta-analysis we reported the published version.
Source: Authors elaborations from IPCC (2012: 317), Section 5.5.2.1.
4.2. Meta-Regression
Our meta-analysis studies significance levels (1/0;
significant or not) rather than continuous t-values to
allow the inclusion of studies that do not (always) re-
port t-statistics or standard errors, but do report sig-
nificance levels (e.g., *10%, **5%, and ***1%). We
assume that the estimated disaster effect yij is a func-
tion of empirical design ED, estimation technique
ET, and studies outreach SO (publication and IPCC
dummy):
yij = 0 + 1 EDi j + 2 ET i j + 3 SOi j + i j . (3)
We observe three categories of y:
1. The reported t-value in regression i in study
j is negative and significant at least at 10%
(t-value lower or equal to 1.65 or an explic-
itly reported significance level in conjunction
with a negative sign for the coefficient);
2. The coefficient is insignificant; and
3. The coefficient is positive and significant at
least at 10% (t-value greater or equal to +1.65
or an explicitly reported significance level in
conjunction with a positive sign for the coef-
ficient).
Because a different number of estimates are
collected from each primary study we follow Bi-
jmolt and Pieters(39) and weight observations for
both model types.22 Table V provides descriptions of
the control variables included in the meta-analysis,
22 Foreach cost category, the weight of estimate i in study j is cal-
culated dividing the total number of t-values by the product of
van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni
Studies in the Meta-Analysis (Until December 2013)
Pielke and Downton (2000)
Simmons and Sutter (2008)
Czajkowski and Kennedy (2010)
Nordhaus (2010)
Noy and Vu (2010)
Vu and Hammes (2010)
Czaikowski et al. (2011)
Mendelsohn et al. (2011)
Strobl (2011)b
Deryugina (2013)
Anttila-Huges and Hsiang (2013)
providing the number of observations (t-values that
could be derived and/or calculated from the primary
studies) and their means and standard deviations.
To compare macroeconometric studies in the meta-
analysis and IPCC samples, we will use the dummy
variable IPCC identifying the overlapping studies.
4.3. Results: Meta-Analysis Versus IPCC
Because the cut-off date of the studies included
in the IPCC report is May 2011, we initially compare
meta-analysis results for two samples including both
direct and indirect costs: the full May 2011 sam-
ple of 34 macroeconometric studies available at the
cut-off date of the IPCC report and the 17 macroe-
conometric studies actually included in the IPCC re-
port (the IPCC selection). The first line shows that
the probability of a significantly negative effect (i.e.,
p[y = 1]) is 65% for the full May 2011 sample and
53% for the IPCC selection. Overall, we find that em-
pirical design of the primary studies is highly relevant
for the sign and level of significance of the estimated
disaster impact. Some of the findings differ. For
example, the use of EMDAT data or the limitation
to local studies is associated with a lower probability
to find a negative and significant disaster impact in
the IPCC selection, which is not supported when we
analyze the full May 2011 sample. It is also notewor-
thy that the publication dummy is significant in the
IPCC sample but not in the full May 2011 sample. We
the number of estimates from study j and the total number of
studies.
 Table IV. Composite t-Statistics of the Selected Studies

Using Median Weighted

t-Statistics All Excluding Weighted All Excluding
from Each Study Observations Outliers Observations Outliers

TC N TC N TC N TWC N TWC N

Model type (1) 37.5 36 159.1 719 54.3 538 100.7 719 50.3 538
Model type (2) 4.8 27 40.4 882 33.3 875 22.9 882 19.7 875
Database: EMDAT
Model type (1) 30.0 23 105.8 513 35.2 393 73.2 513 33.4 393
Model type (2) 3.2 17 21.5 490 21.0 489 16.4 490 16.2 489
Database: other
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature

Model type (1) 22.6 13 130.3 206 46.7 145 71.9 206 42.3 145
Model type (2) 3.2 13 36.6 392 26.4 386 16.3 392 12.4 386
Countries: OECD
Model type (1) 34.9 31 137.1 571 48.6 453 100.5 571 46.1 453
Model type (2) 3.8 22 28.0 634 26.2 630 16.5 634 15.4 630
Countries: non-OECD
Model type (1) 31.8 27 110.5 558 40.2 433 80.4 558 39.5 433
Model type (2) 4.2 25 39.8 822 32.4 815 22.6 822 18.9 815
Published
Model type (1) 32.0 20 155.9 290 58.0 197 92.6 290 42.5 197
Model type (2) 3.9 12 31.8 390 23.5 387 25.0 390 20.5 387
Unpublished
Model type (1) 19.5 16 77.8 429 24.2 341 50.7 429 29.2 341
Model type (2) 2.9 15 25.8 492 23.7 488 11.7 492 10.6 488
Included in IPCC (2012)
Model type (1) 24.4 8 92.1 93 38.2 59 60.1 93 24.8 59
Model type (2) 2.7 9 13.4 269 12.8 268 10.8 269 10.6 268
Excluded by IPCC (2012)
Model type (1) 29.5 28 135.0 626 44.2 479 81.6 626 43.7 479
Model type (2) 4.0 18 39.6 613 31.5 607 20.4 613 16.6 607

Note: Composite t-values can be calculated based only on reported t-values (719 and 882 for direct and indirect costs studies) rather than reported levels of significance (765 and 923
for direct and indirect costs studies; cf. Fig. 2). In the table TC stands for composite unweighted t-values as explained by Equation (1) in the text whereas TW stands for composite
weighted t-statistics as explained by Equation (2) in the text.
Source: Authors elaborations.
1061
1062 van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni

Table V. Definition of Variables and Descriptive Statistics

Model Type 1 Model Type 2

Variable Description N Mean SD N Mean SD

Empirical design
N observations Number of observations in the original regression 765 2,564 5,085 923 3,021 11,697
EM-DAT 1 if data on disasters were taken from EM-DAT, else 0 765 0.681 0.466 923 0.562 0.496
Climatic disaster 1 if climatic natural disasters were included, else 0 765 0.884 0.321 923 0.856 0.351
Geologic disaster 1 if geologic natural disasters were included, else 0 765 0.320 0.467 923 0.650 0.477
Other disaster 1 if nonnatural disasters were included, else 0 765 0.009 0.095 923 0.190 0.392
N years Period considered in the estimation 765 36.349 16.178 923 32.670 12.462
N countries Number of countries in the sample 757 57 48 891 89 54
Local study 1 if the study focuses on 1 country, else 0 765 0.235 0.424 923 0.051 0.220
OECD 1 if OECD countries are included, else 0 739 0.824 0.381 923 0.687 0.464
Non-OECD 1 if non-OECD countries are included, else 0 739 0.755 0.430 923 0.935 0.247
Medium run 1 if the study considers impact in medium run, else 0 765 0.005 0.072 923 0.049 0.215
Long run 1 if the study considers impact in the long run, else 0 765 0.041 0.197 923 0.291 0.455
ND: Dummy 1 if natural disaster is modeled through a dummy, else 0 765 0.144 0.351 923 0.107 0.310
ND: Count 1 if natural disaster is modeled in terms of frequency, else 0 765 0.272 0.445 923 0.291 0.455
ND: Intensity 1 if natural disaster is modeled in terms of intensity, else 0 765 0.464 0.499 923 0.301 0.459
ND: Killed 1 if natural disaster is modeled in terms of deaths, else 0 765 0.026 0.026 923 0.076 0.265
ND: Affected 1 if natural disaster is modeled in terms of affected, else 0 765 0.094 0.292 923 0.115 0.319
ND: Damages 1 if natural disaster is modeled in terms of damages, else 0 923 0.173 0.379
Estimation technique
Panel 1 if data set is panel (0 = cross-section) , else 0 765 0.944 0.230 923 0.928 0.258
OLS 1 if estimation is conducted with OLS, else 0 765 0.410 0.492 923 0.572 0.495
Country FE 1 if estimation with country fixed effects, else 0 765 0.337 0.473 923 0.592 0.492
IV 1 if estimation with instrumental variables, else 0 765 0.080 0.271 923 0.089 0.285
NegBin 1 if estimation with negative binomial, else 0 765 0.229 0.420
ZINB 1 if estimation with zero-inflated neg.bin., else 0 765 0.065 0.247
GMM 1 if estimation with GMM, else 0 923 0.178 0.382
Studies outreach
Published 1 if the study is published in a peer-reviewed journal, else 0 765 0.429 0.495 923 0.454 0.498
IPCC 1 if the study is included in IPCC (2012), else 0 765 0.161 0.368 923 0.317 0.466

Source: Authors elaborations.

do, however, also find much agreement: the findings
for both samples show the importance of the num-
ber of observations (although the effect is very small
in magnitude), other disasters, panel studies, long-
run focus, andimportantlythe dummy for Model
type 2 studies is significant for both samples. The im-
plication of the latter finding is clear: a significant
difference occurs for direct and indirect cost studies
so that these groups need to be analyzed in separate
meta-analyses.
Table VII, therefore, provides these two meta-
analyses for the full sample of 60 studies available at
the end of 2013.
The first line shows that the probability of a
significantly negative effect (i.e., p[y = 1]) is 73% for
direct costs and 43% for indirect costs. The empirical
design of the studies is as before highly relevant for
the sign and level of significance of estimated disaster
impact for both model types. For example, studies
that use as disaster variable the number of disasters
that occurred rather than a dummy for disaster
occurrence are more likely to report a significantly
negative result (the probability is 46% pt. higher).
The probability to report a significantly negative
result further increases significantly when disaster
occurrence is measured in terms of intensity, fatali-
ties, and affected persons. The heterogeneity of the
results of the primary studies also depends on the
number of years and countries considered in the
primary studies. Contrary to a priori expectations
primary studies that analyze non-OECD countries
are more likely to report a positive result; the proba-
bility increases by 18% pt. (direct costs). This result,
however, has to be interpreted with caution, as the
 Table VI. Meta-Regression Analysis for All Studies Until IPCC Cut-Off Date (May 2011)

All Studies IdentifiedUntil May 2011 IPCC Studies

(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)

Significant Significant Significant Significant
Outcome(c) Negative Insignificant Positive Negative Insignificant Positive

P(y = c), sd 0.65 (0.32) 0.28 (0.23) 0.07 (0.12) 0.53 (0.35) 0.38 (0.28) 0.09 (0.21)
N obs 0.00*** (3.94) 0.00*** (3.57) 0.00*** (3.73) 0.00*** (4.57) 0.00*** (4.08) 0.00*** (3.33)
EMDAT 0.06 (1.16) 0.03 (1.13) 0.02 (1.18) 0.19*** (5.38) 0.13*** (7.47) 0.06*** (2.7)
Nyears 0.00 (1.05) 0.00 (1.07) 0.00 (1.01) 0.00 (0.63) 0.00 (0.62) 0.00 (0.65)
Ncountries 0.00 (1.41) 0.00 (1.47) 0.00 (1.3) 0.00 (0.71) 0.00 (0.72) 0.00 (0.68)
Local study 0.06 (0.57) 0.04 (0.57) 0.02 (0.57) 1.08** (2.17) 0.73** (2.13) 0.35* (1.95)
OECD 0.13*** (2.6) 0.07*** (2.82) 0.05** (2.2) 0.10 (0.88) 0.06 (0.92) 0.03 (0.79)
Non-OECD 0.05 (0.5) 0.03 (0.51) 0.02 (0.48) 0.11 (1.42) 0.07 (1.36) 0.04 (1.44)
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature

Climatic 0.03 (0.15) 0.01 (0.15) 0.01 (0.15) 0.45* (1.83) 0.30 (1.64) 0.14** (2.16)
Geologic 0.09 (1) 0.05 (1.00) 0.04 (0.97) 0.19 (1) 0.13 (0.98) 0.06 (1.01)
Other 0.15*** (2.81) 0.09*** (2.62) 0.06*** (2.82) 0.23*** (4.11) 0.15*** (3.25) 0.07*** (4.36)
Medium run 0.13* (1.74) 0.08* (1.78) 0.05 (1.61) 0.09 (1.16) 0.06 (1.12) 0.03 (1.2)
Long run 0.14*** (3.13) 0.08*** (3.08) 0.06*** (2.83) 0.11** (2.17) 0.08** (2.03) 0.04** (2.15)
Type 2 0.35*** (4.17) 0.21*** (3.81) 0.14*** (3.82) 1.58*** (4.39) 1.07*** (3.73) 0.51*** (3.58)
ND: Counta 0.14*** (2.65) 0.08*** (2.61) 0.06** (2.46) 0.05 (0.58) 0.04 (0.59) 0.02 (0.56)
ND: Intensitya 0.19** (2.47) 0.12** (2.41) 0.08** (2.36) 0.07 (0.32) 0.05 (0.32) 0.02 (0.32)
ND: Killeda 0.02 (0.49) 0.01 (0.48) 0.01 (0.5) 0.09 (0.98) 0.06 (0.98) 0.03 (0.96)
ND: Affecteda 0.05 (0.76) 0.03 (0.75) 0.02 (0.77) 0.08 (0.67) 0.06 (0.66) 0.03 (0.67)
ND: Damagesa 0.06 (1.02) 0.04 (1.03) 0.02 (1) 0.01 (0.12) 0.01 (0.12) 0.00 (0.12)
Panel 0.24*** (2.78) 0.14*** (2.84) 0.10** (2.46) 0.89*** (3.38) 0.60*** (3.17) 0.29*** (2.77)
OLS 0.07 (0.99) 0.04 (1.02) 0.03 (0.94) 0.50* (1.85) 0.34* (1.89) 0.16 (1.61)
IV 0.00 (0.06) 0.00 (0.06) 0.00 (0.06) 0.41 (1.27) 0.28 (1.28) 0.13 (1.2)
GMM 0.08 (1.29) 0.05 (1.25) 0.03 (1.32) 0.71** (2.39) 0.48** (2.32) 0.23** (2.12)
Negative binomial 0.02 (0.13) 0.01 (0.13) 0.01 (0.13) 1.21** (2.27) 0.82** (2.14) 0.39** (2.18)
ZINB 0.10 (0.89) 0.06 (0.88) 0.04 (0.89)
CountryFE 0.11** (2.1) 0.06** (2.05) 0.04** (2.04) 0.24 (1.55) 0.16 (1.49) 0.08 (1.55)
Published 0.03 (0.5) 0.02 (0.49) 0.01 (0.51) 0.80** (2.5) 0.55** (2.46) 0.26** (2.15)
Pseudo R2 0.354 0.421
N studies 34 17
N obs. 778 376

Notes: Ordered probit, dependent variable: disaster impact effects. Standard errors clustered by studies.
a Reference category for the way natural disasters (ND) are operationalized is the dummy for disaster occurrence.

*, **, *** stand for 10%, 5%, and 1% level of significance.

1063
 1064

Table VII. Meta-Regression Analysis by Model Type

Model Type 1 Model Type 2

(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)

Outcome(c) Significant Negative Insignificant Significant Positive Significant Negative Insignificant Significant Positive

P(y = c), sd 0.73 (0.30) 0.11 (0.09) 0.16 (0.23) 0.43 (0.27) 0.46 (0.29) 0.11 (0.16)
N obs. 0.00 (0.72) 0.00 (0.65) 0.00 (0.71) 0.00** (2.07) 0.00** (2.00) 0.00** (2.12)
EMDAT 0.01 (0.03) 0.00 (0.03) 0.01 (0.03) 0.34*** (6.17) 0.22*** (4.93) 0.13*** (6.79)
N years 0.01** (3.27) 0.00* (1.71) 0.02*** (3.1) 0.01*** (4.49) 0.01*** (4.53) 0.00*** (3.73)
N countries 0.00 (1.58) 0.00 (1.36) 0.00 (1.58) 0.00 (1.16) 0.00 (1.18) 0.00 (1.10)
Local study 0.11 (1.50) 0.01* (1.9) 0.12 (1.54) 0.87*** (4.09) 0.55*** (3.71) 0.32*** (4.13)
OECD 0.02 (0.66) 0.00 (0.58) 0.02 (0.66) 0.14*** (3.02) 0.09*** (2.95) 0.05*** (2.87)
Non-OECD 0.16** (2.33) 0.01 (1.61) 0.18** (2.29) 0.07 (1.22) 0.04 (1.24) 0.03 (1.16)
Climatic 0.28 (1.63) 0.02 (1.32) 0.31 (1.62) 0.00 (0.02) 0.00 (0.02) 0.00 (0.02)
Geologic 0.11 (0.59) 0.01 (0.57) 0.12 (0.59) 0.05 (0.41) 0.03 (0.41) 0.02 (0.42)
Other 0.40 (1.40) 0.03 (1.6) 0.44 (1.42) 0.15** (2.14) 0.10** (2.09) 0.06** (2.13)
Medium run 0.35** (2.21) 0.03 (1.44) 0.38** (2.14) 0.24*** (2.66) 0.15*** (2.84) 0.09** (2.29)
Long run 0.30 (0.82) 0.03 (0.66) 0.33 (0.81) 0.21*** (4.69) 0.14*** (4.44) 0.08*** (4.16)
ND: Counta 0.46*** (2.87) 0.04* (1.89) 0.50*** (2.82) 0.11 (1.12) 0.07 (1.12) 0.04 (1.12)
ND: Intensitya 0.37*** (2.72) 0.03** (1.97) 0.40*** (2.71) 0.26* (1.94) 0.17** (2.04) 0.10* (1.74)
ND: Killeda 1.18*** (6.25) 0.10*** (3.62) 1.28*** (6.9) 0.10 (1.27) 0.07 (1.21) 0.04 (1.37)
ND: Affecteda 0.40* (1.91) 0.03 (1.57) 0.44* (1.9) 0.00 (0.03) 0.00 (0.03) 0.00 (0.03)
ND: Damagesa 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01)
Panel 0.07*** (8.23) 0.01*** (2.77) 0.07*** (8.09) 0.39*** (3.51) 0.25*** (3.56) 0.14*** (3.07)
OLS 0.09 (1.09) 0.01 (1.34) 0.10 (1.11) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01)
IV 0.25* (1.88) 0.02*** (3.2) 0.27** (1.96) 0.07 (0.71) 0.04 (0.69) 0.03 (0.74)
GMM 0.01 (0.06) 0.00 (0.06) 0.00 (0.06)
Negative binomial 0.14 (0.92) 0.01 (1.03) 0.15 (0.93)
ZINB 0.53*** (2.71) 0.04*** (3.02) 0.57*** (2.82)
CountryFE 0.06 (1.62) 0.01* (1.92) 0.07* (1.66) 0.12** (2.01) 0.07** (2.07) 0.04* (1.84)
Published 0.43*** (3.95) 0.04* (1.97) 0.47*** (3.77) 0.45*** (4.94) 0.28*** (4.59) 0.17*** (4.44)
IPCC 0.20 (0.65) 0.02 (0.55) 0.22 (0.64) 0.13** (1.99) 0.08* (1.95) 0.05 (1.97)
Pseudo R2 0.317 0.176
N studies 36 29
N obs. 739 891

Note: Ordered probit, dependent variable: disaster impact effects. Standard errors clustered by studies.
a Reference category for the way natural disasters (ND) are operationalized is the dummy for disaster occurrence.

*, **, and *** stand for 10%, 5%, and 1% level of significance.
van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature
list of non-OECD countries includes many different
economies both in terms of regional distribution
and income levels (ranging from LDCs to BRICS
and advanced economies that are not members of
the OECD). Clearly, this is an important issue for
further research.
For indirect costs studies, different measure-
ments of disasters do not influence the probability to
report a positive or negative impact except for disas-
ter intensity, increasing the probability to report pos-
itive and significant results by 10%. The data source
is highly relevant: using the EMDAT database re-
duces the probability of significantly negative results
by 36%. If the indirect costs are analyzed with a
medium- to long-term perspective, the reported dis-
aster outcome has 2126% pt. lower probability to be
significantly negative and a 89% pt. higher probabil-
ity to be significantly positive, reflecting the ability of
economies to recover from disasters as time passes.
In comparison with IPCC findings, although devel-
oped (OECD) countries may experience high eco-
nomic losses, the meta-analysis suggests that studies
including OECD countries have a 14% lower prob-
ability to report negative and significant disaster ef-
fects (possibly due to higher preparedness and abil-
ity to recover). Introducing country fixed effects in
primary studies econometric analyses should capture
higher/lower wealth and preparedness time-invariant
country characteristics and this is reflected by the
finding that studies that include country fixed effects
have a 12% higher probability to report negative and
significant results.
We next turn to two important issues that relate
to bias. The first issue relates to publication bias.
The dummy Published is significant and shows that
the likelihood of reporting significantly negative
results is 4345% pt. higher for published studies
(after controlling for other characteristics of the
primary studies) for both model types. The second
issue relates to bias in the selection of studies (this
consists of initial bias as illustrated in Table VI and
of the noninclusion of studies that were published
after the IPCCs cut-off day). Importantly, we find
no evidence of bias for direct cost studies, so that
the IPCC selection represents the field that we know
today quite well. For indirect cost studies, we note
that the studies included in the IPCC report are less
likely to report significantly negative results (the
probability decreases by 13% pt.). The point here
is that the IPCC selection of macroeconometric
studies could explain why its conclusions are less
1065
confident than the conclusions that we base on the
meta-analysis of a larger set of papers.23
5. CONCLUSIONS AND AREAS FOR
FURTHER RESEARCH
Recent years have witnessed a strong increase
in the number of available studies on the macroe-
conometric impact of natural disasters. These stud-
ies, as in any emerging field of science, are
heterogeneous both in terms of findings and method-
ological characteristics. In this article, we discussed
a meta-analysis providing descriptive bibliometric
statistics and an econometric synthesis of the litera-
ture. The main findings of the meta-analysis are that:
r The impact of disasters is significantly negative.
The evidence is strongest for direct costs studies
where we see no difference between our larger
sample and the studies included in the IPCC re-
port.
r Direct cost studies and indirect cost studies dif-
fer significantly, both in terms of the confidence
that can be attached to a negative impact of
natural disasters and in terms of the sources of
heterogeneity of the findings reported in the pri-
mary studies.
r Country coverage, time period, and natural dis-
aster operationalization significantly influence
the probability that a study reports a signifi-
cantly negative disaster impact in direct costs
studies;
r For indirect cost studies we find that hetero-
geneity is due to the database used, the time
frame (does the study consider short-/medium-
/long-term effects) and the limitation of the
analysis to a single country.
r Both direct and indirect costs studies suggest
publication bias.
We confronted this methodology with the au-
thoritative selective peer-reviewed literature review
of the IPCC special report Managing the Risks of
Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate
Change Adaptation. Table VIII provides an overview
of strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches.
The traditional narrative literature synthesis
clearly has strong points mainly related to its
23 Note again that the IPCC sample covers studies until May 2011,
so it is possible that this finding partially reflects that we updated
the sample as requested by the referees of the journal
1066
Table VIII. Strengths and Weaknesses of Traditional Literature Review and Meta-Analysis
Qualitative analysis and case studies
Quantitative analysis
Identification of methodological differences
Identification of impact of methodological differences
Possibility to include incomplete studies
Coverage of literature relevant for method
Transparent nonsubjective synthesis
Source: Authors elaborations.
a If only impulse response function reported in the study.
flexibility and ability to also include purely qualita-
tive analysis (including mathematical models), case
studies, and studies that by their very nature do not
report significance levels (input-output models and
computable general equilibrium models). Indeed, in
the case of natural disasters meta-analysis and IPCC
literature review studies, samples do not show high
overlap because the bulk of studies in IPCC (sections
4.5, 5.5.2.1, 6.1, and 8.2.1) are nonmacroeconometric
(Fig. 3).
Our meta-analysis does not take non-
macroeconometric studies into account (except
for VAR studies presenting regression coefficients),
although economic tools such as IO models, VARs,
and CGE models certainly generate valuable sci-
entific knowledge. The method to synthesize the
knowledge is completely transparent for meta-
analyses and this is a benefit in a highly political area
such as the developmental perspective on the impact
of natural disasters. Importantly, meta-analysis helps
to uncover the relationship between findings in
primary studies and their methodological character-
istics. Meta-analysis provides a formal framework to
test hypotheses. Sometimes, experts and researchers
may see such tests as complex methods that prove
what they already know, but the fact that this can
be done objectively and transparently certainly adds
value. When the expert researchers say we know
this or this result is biased by this methodology,
the meta-analyst says yes, and we can test/prove
this.
One of the major problems with doing meta-
analyses in economics is that primary studies do
not always provide the necessary parameters. In the
case of natural disasters we had to exclude the stud-
ies of Benson and Clay,(21) Jaramillo,(22) and Sim-
mons and Sutter(23,24) because of missing number of
observations in the estimations presented. This is
van Bergeijk and Lazzaroni
Traditional Literature Meta-Analysis
Review (IPCC 2012) (Authors 2013)
Yes No
Yes Yes, but not CGE, VAR,a and input-output
Yes Yes
No Yes
Yes No
Incomplete (selective) Incomplete (search strategy)
No Yes
actually a quite general nuisance. Disdier and
Head,(8) analyzing the distance effect in 103 gravity
models, report that only 1,257 of 1,466 regressions
reported standard errors (a 15% loss). Moons and
Van Bergeijk,(40) analyzing the impact of economic
diplomacy, report that of the 1,334 coefficients taken
from 30 studies only 643 t-values (48%) were re-
ported or could be calculated because essential infor-
mation such as standard errors was missing in the pri-
mary studies. It should also be noted that this is not
a problem that is specific to economicscomparable
problems also occur in fields where meta-analysis is
well established as a tool to synthesize knowledge
(see, e.g., Goodman et al.(41) ). Incomplete or inaccu-
rate studies (e.g., those that fail to report standard er-
rors, t-values, or the number of observations) can still
be considered in the traditional review of literature
(probably with a lower implicit weight of evidence)
To conclude, both methodologies have short-
comings as far as the studies coverage is concerned.
Traditional literature reviews are more prone to
be affected by author decisions to include/exclude
studies depending on their findings. For example, the
IPCC literature review is by design a selective survey
of the literature that emphasizes what the authors
of the survey deem reliable and important. As such,
the objectivity of the IPCC review is not based on
full inclusivity of all available literature but mostly
on the rigorous review and peer-review process. This
would provide the necessary quality and objectivity,
whereas our meta-analysis has to rely on trans-
parency, full coverage of the literature, and rigorous
robustness testing.24 Meta-analysis Internet-based
search strategies might exclude relevant studies not
in the form of academic articles and/or working
papers. The incomplete coverage also may reflect the
24 We thank an anonymous referee for pointing this out to us.
Meta-Analysis Versus Review of Literature
inability to cope with certain methods and method-
ologies and the data requirements of meta-analyses.
It is, however, also a consequence of decisions to
include or exclude studies.
Our take on this is that the two methods force
two different perspectives on researchers and that
each perspective helps to uncover other (aspects of)
literatures. If that is the case then research synthesis
would benefit from combining the two approaches.
So we arrive at two intertwined conclusions. A
meta-analysis without a traditional review of the
literature is incomplete. A traditional review of the
empirical literature is equally incomplete without a
meta-analysis: IPCC could have been more confident
about the negative economic impact of disasters if a
meta-analysis had been used.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank EAERE and the Harvard Center for
Risk Analysis (HCRA) for financial support and Lisa
A. Robinson and James K. Hammitt and participants
at the HCRAs October 2013 Methods for Research
Synthesis: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach work-
shop for their helpful comments. Research for this ar-
ticle was conducted when Sara Lazzaroni was a PhD
student at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
of Piacenza (Italy); financial support from the univer-
sity is gratefully acknowledged. We also would like
to thank two anonymous referees, Raymond Florax,
and professors and participants at the 2013 Belpasso
International Summer School and the 2013 MAER-
Net conference in Greenwich for helpful comments.
We thank authors of primary studies who kindly
replied providing the additional data needed for the
compilation of the meta data set and other valu-
able insights for our analysis: Jesse Anttila-Hughes,
Laura Bakkensen, Oscar Becerra, Eduardo Cav-
allo, Juncal Cunado, Tatyana Deryugina, Solomon
Hsiang, Matthew Kahn, Carolyn Kousky, Norman
Loayza, Tom McDermott, Ilan Noy, Roger Pielke
Jr., Tobias Rasmussen, Bob Reed, Mark Skidmore,
Jose Tavares, Dean Yang, Yuki Yikeda, and Yanos
Zylberberg.
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