When shocks strike they have animmediate and direct impact on life, income, and assets.Twostrands of literature can be usefully brought together togenerate some initial indicative estimates of the timing ofa shock’s impacts, and thus the likely benefit of actingearly to mitigate these impacts: i) Post-disaster andvulnerability assessments that explain how the impact ofdifferent disasters unfolds, that estimate losses fromassets and income, or that present data on coping mechanismsused; and ii) Micro econometric studies that assess the costimposed by coping strategies on income and growth.An initialassessment of this literature was undertaken in Clarke andHill (2013) for drought in Africa. This paper extends andupdates this review by (i) adding new studies published inthe last five years; and (ii) including studies outside ofAfrica and considering other types of disaster in additionto drought—specifically floods and earthquakes in Asia, andearthquakes, cyclones, or hurricanes in small island states(Pacific, Caribbean).This finding is consistent with awell-published literature showing that variability of incomeover time impacts child nutrition and can be linked tostunting, a condition that causes irrevocable harm byimpairing brain development, leading to lower cognitive andsocioemotional skills, lower levels of educationalattainment, and hence lower incomes.The paper proceeds asfollows. Section two sets out the framework and approachused. Section three presents evidence on rapid-onset events,section four on slow-onset events, and section five onprices. Section six offers some conclusions andrecommendations for future data collection.
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