Curriculum Disasters, Pandemics & Economic Recovery
Disasters, Pandemics & Economic Recovery
How floods, earthquakes, heatwaves, droughts and pandemics hit economies, why the poorest suffer most, and what prevention, insurance and early warning can do.
- Counting the Cost of Natural Disasters How economists measure the damage from disasters, why reported losses keep rising, and what those numbers leave out. 📄 Read-aloud
- Why Disasters Hurt Poor Countries More Why similar hazards kill far more people in poorer places, and how income, building quality and institutions shape who survives. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Disaster Insurance Gap Why most disaster losses in poorer countries are uninsured, and how new tools like parametric insurance and regional risk pools help. 📄 Read-aloud
- An Ounce of Prevention: Disaster Risk Reduction Why spending before a disaster saves far more than spending after it, with the evidence and the political reasons prevention is underfunded. 📄 Read-aloud
- Early Warning Systems How warnings of storms, floods and tsunamis save lives and money, why they must reach everyone, and the global push to extend them. 📄 Read-aloud
- After the Disaster: Aid and Recovery How relief and reconstruction are funded and delivered, why cash aid is increasingly used, and what it means to build back better. 📄 Read-aloud
- Disasters, Pandemics & Economic Recovery: Checkpoint 1 Quick checkpoint - five questions on disaster losses, vulnerability, insurance, prevention and early warnings. 5 questions
- The Economics of Pandemics How pandemics damage economies through illness, fear and lockdowns, what history shows, and why infection is an economic externality. 📄 Read-aloud
- Paying for Pandemic Preparedness Why preparing for pandemics is a global public good, how fast vaccine development was financed during COVID-19, and why preparedness is underfunded. 📄 Read-aloud
- Extreme Heat and Work How rising temperatures reduce productivity and threaten outdoor workers, and what economists estimate about the costs of extreme heat. 📄 Read-aloud
- Floods and Cities Why urban floods are becoming more damaging, how building over wetlands and drains worsens them, and what cities can do. 📄 Read-aloud
- Earthquakes and Building Codes Why most earthquake deaths are caused by collapsing buildings, how building codes save lives, and why enforcement is the hard part. 📄 Read-aloud
- Drought and the Rural Economy How droughts damage farm incomes and ripple through rural economies, how households cope, and which policies help them recover. 📄 Read-aloud
- Cyclone Preparedness: Odisha's Success How the Indian state of Odisha went from a devastating 1999 cyclone to near-zero deaths in later storms through early warnings, shelters and mass evacuation. 📄 Read-aloud