Economics of Catastrophic Events

Monday 10 May 2010 (17:00-18:00) seminar ended

Leonardo Garrido (Coordinator for Modeling Social and Economic impacts of Earthquakes)

Summary: Attempts to measure social and economic impacts of adverse natural events have yielded disappointing results to researchers and policy makers.  Modeling approaches based on mainstream economic theories have failed to consider the complex interactions that exist among physical and geographic characteristics, structural buildings, and the social and economic individuals framework. 

Personal Biography: Leonardo Garrido is a Venezuelan-Spanish national working as a Coordinator for Modeling Social and Economic impacts of Earthquakes, for the Global Earthquake Model; and a Research Consultant for the World Bank, at the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network. He specialises in macro and microeconomic analysis, empirical methods, econometric and system dynamics modeling on issues of poverty, growth, productivity and income distribution, and on the analysis of social and economic consequences of natural disasters. Leonardo is an Economist, graduated in 1990 from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela, and holds an MPA from Harvard-KSG (2000) and an ITP Certificate from Harvard Law School (1999). He currently live in Washington D.C.

This presentation summarizes traditional and modern approaches to modeling economic impacts from natural events, highlighting their aims, overall characteristics, and their ability to address key concerns of stake holders. It will include a discussion on system economic approaches to link economic variables and natural events as well as a brief description of the World Bank experience on Catastrophe Risk.

Seminar Room, SSEE, Hayes House, 75 George Street, Oxford OX1 2BQ

This seminar is OPEN TO ALL and there is no need to pre-register; simply arrive just prior to the published start time.