Mercatus Disaster Recovery Research

The products of the Mercatus Center Gulf Coast Recovery Project continue to flow. Research projects among graduate students and alumni continue in the area of the entrepreneurial market process, the constitutional level of analysis and strategic behavior within government, and the informal rules that enable social groups to engage in effective collective action, in addition to the growing literature on disasters. Below is a list of books, journal articles, and policy papers that are a result of this research program to date.

Books

• Chamlee-Wright, Emily. The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery: Social Learning in a Post-Disaster Environment: New York, NY: Routledge, 2010. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr (eds.) The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010. 
• Coyne, Christopher. Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
• Haeffele, Stefanie and Virgil Henry Storr (eds.) Bottom-up Responses to Crisis: New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
• Haeffele, Stefanie and Virgil Henry Storr (eds.) Government Responses to Crisis: New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian, 2020.
• Storr, Nona Martin, Emily Chamlee-Wright, and Virgil Storr. How We Came Back: Voices from Post-Katrina New Orleans: Arlington, VA: Mercatus Center, 2015.
• Storr, Virgil Henry, Stefanie Haeffele-Balch, and Laura E. Grube. Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster: Lessons in Local Entrepreneurship: New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Journal Articles

• Boettke, Peter, Emily Chamlee-Wright, Peter Gordon, Sanford Ikeda, Peter Leeson, and Russell Sobel, “The Political, Economic, and Social Aspects of Katrina,” Southern Economic Journal 74, no. 2 (2007): 363-376. 
• Brito, Jerry, “Sending out an S.O.S.: Public Safety Communications Interoperability as a Collective Action Problem,” Federal Communications Law Journal 59 (2007): 457-92. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily, “The Long Road Back: Signal Noise in the Post-Katrina Context,” The Independent Review 12, no. 2 (2007): 235-259. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily, “Signaling Effects of Commercial and Civil Society in Post-Katrina Reconstruction,” International Journal of Social Economics 35, no. 8 (2008): 675-626. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily, “Reflections on Methodology, Disasters, and Social Learning,” Studies in Emergent Order 4 (2011): 87-104. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily, "The Power of Narrative in Post-Disaster Entrepreneurial Response," The Review of Austrian Economics 31, (2018): 467-472.
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Post-Katrina Community Recovery,” International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development 2, no. 1 (2010): 149-164, and in The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “Social Capital, Lobbying and Community-Based Interest Groups," Public Choice 149, nos. 1-2 (2011): 167-185. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “Social Capital as Collective Narratives and Post-Disaster Community Recovery,” Sociological Review 59, no. 2 (2011): 266-282. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “Commercial Relationships and Spaces after Disaster,” Society 51, no. 6 (2014): 656-664. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “Expectations of Government's Response to Disaster,” Public Choice 144, no. 1 (2008): 253-274. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “Club Goods and Post-Disaster Community Return,” Rationality and Scoiety 21, no. 4 (2009a): 429-458. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “There's No Place Like New Orleans: Sense of Place and Community Recovery in the Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina,” Journal of Urban Affairs 31, no. 5 (2009b): 615-634.
• Coyne, Christopher and Jayme Lemke, “Polycentricity in Disaster Relief,” Studies in Emergent Order 3 (2011): 45-57. 
• Coyne, Christopher and Jayme Lemke, “Lessons from 'The Cultural and Political Economy of Recovery,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 71, no. 1 (2012): 215-228. 
• D'Amico, Daniel, “Who's to Blame for all the Heartache? A Response to Anti-Capitalistic Mentalities after Katrina,” International Journal of Social Economics 35, no. 8 (2008): 590 - 602. 
• Fike, Rosemarie, Laura Grube, and Virgil Henry Storr, "Navigating Disaster: An Empirical Study of Federal Assistance Following Hurricane Sandy," The Eastern Economic Journal 44, no. 4 (2018): 576-593.
• Grube, Laura and Virgil Henry Storr, "Embedded entrepreneurs and post-disaster recovery," Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 30, no. 7-8 (2018): 800-821.
• Haeffele, Stefanie and Alexader Wade Craig, "Commerical social spaces in the post-disaster context," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, 9, no. 3 (2020): 303-317.
• Haeffele-Balch, Stefanie, Laura Grube, and Virgil Henry Storr, "Entrepreneurs drive community revival in the wake of disaster," The Review of Austrian Economics 31, (2017): 479-484.
• Horwitz, Steven, “Best Responders: Post-Katrina Innovation and Improvisation by Wal-Mart and the U.S. Coast Guard,” Innovations 4, no. 2 (2009a): 93-99.
• Horwitz, Steven, “Wal-Mart to the Rescue: Private Enterprise's Response to Hurricane Katrina,” The Independent Review 13, no. 4 (2009b): 511-28. 
• Leeson, Peter, “Race, Politics, and Punishment: Democratic Failure in the New Orleans Mayoral Election,” European Journal of Law and Economics 31, no. 3 (2011): 265-285. 
• Leeson, Peter and Russell Sobel, “Blame the Weather? Natural Disasters, FEMA, and Corruption in America,” Administrative and Regulatory Law News 36, no. 4 (2011): 10-11. 
• Leeson, Peter and Russell Sobel, “Government's Response to Hurricane Katrina: A Public Choice Analysis,” Public Choice 127, no. 1-2 (2006): 55-73. 
• Leeson, Peter and Russell Sobel, “Centralization Proves Inadequate to Disaster Aid,” Journal of International Peace Operations 3, no. 4 (2008a): 11-12. 
• Leeson, Peter and Russell Sobel, “The Use of Knowledge in Natural Disaster Relief Management,” Independent Review 11, no. 4 (2008b): 519-532 and in The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Leeson, Peter and Russell Sobel, “Weathering Corruption,” Journal of Law and Economics 51, no. 4 (2008): 667-681. 
• Skarbek, David, “Occupational Licensing and Asymmetric Information: Post-Hurricane Evidence from Florida,” Cato Journal 28, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 73-82. 
• Skarbek, Emily, “The Chicago Fire of 1871: A Bottom-up Approach to Disaster Relief,” Public Choice 160, no. 1-2 (2014): 155-180. 
• Smith, Daniel and Daniel Sutter, “Response and Recovery after the Joplin Tornado,” The Independent Review 18, no. 2 (2013): 165-188. 
• Sobel, Russell, Christopher Coyne, and Peter Leeson, “The Political Economy of FEMA: Did Reorganization Matter?,” Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice 17, no. 2-3 (2009): 49-65. 
• Storr, Virgil Henry and Laura Grube, “The Capacity for Self-governance and Post-disaster Resiliency,” Review of Austrian Economics 27, no. 3 (2014): 301-324. 
• Storr, Virgil Henry, Stefanie Haeffele-Balch, and Laura Grube, "Social Capital and Social Learning after Hurricane Sandy," The Review of Austrian Economics 30, (2017): 447-467.
• Storr, Virgil Henry, Stefanie Haeffele-Balch, and Laura Grube, "Polycentric orders and post-disaster recovery: a cas study of one Orthodox Jewish community following Hurricane Sandy," Journal of Institutional Economics, 13, no. 4 (2017): 875-897.
• Storr, Virgil Henry and Stefanie Haeffele-Balch, “Post-disaster Community Recovery in Heterogeneous, Loosely-connected Communities,” Review of Social Economy 70, no. 3 (2012): 295-314. 
• Sutter, Daniel, Harold Brooks, and Charles Doswell, “Low-Level Winds in Tornadoes and Potential Catastrophic Tornado Impacts in Urban Areas,” American Meteorological Society 89, no 1 (2008): 87-90. 
• Sutter, Daniel and Somer Erickson, “The Time Cost of Tornado Warnings and the Savins with Storm-Based Warnings,” American Meteorological Society 2, no. 2 (2010): 103-112. 
• Sutter, Daniel, Bradley Ewing, Jamie Kruse, “An Overview of Hurricane Katrina and Economic Loss,” Journal of Business Valuation and Economic Loss Analysis 4, no. 2 (2009). 
• Sutter, Daniel and Nicole Sadowski, “Mitigation Motivated by Past Experience: Prior Hurricanes and Damages,” Ocean and Coastal Management 51, no. 4 (2008): 303-313. 
• Sutter, Daniel and Kevin Simmons, “Tornado Shelters and the Housing Market,” Construction Management and Economics 25, no. 11: (2007a). 
• Sutter, Daniel and Kevin Simmons, “Tornado Shelters and the Manufactured Home Parks Market,” Natural Hazards 43, no. 3 (2007b): 365-378. 
• Sutter, Daniel and Kevin Simmons, “Tornado Warnings, Lead Times, and Tornado Casualties: An Empirical Investigation,” American Meteorological Society 23, no. 2 (2008): 246-258. 
• Sutter, Daniel and Kevin Simmons, “False Alarms, Tornado Warnings, and Tornado Casualties,” Weather, Culture and Society 1 (2009): 38-53. 
• Sutter, Daniel and Kevin Simmons, “Tornado Fatalities and Mobile Homes in the United States,” Natural Hazards 53, no. 1 (2010): 125-137. 
• Sutter, Daniel and Kevin Simmons, “Economic and Societal Impacts of Tornadoes,” American Meteorological Society 1, no. 1 (2011): 38-53. 
• Weiser, Phillip, “Communicating During Emergencies: Toward Interoperability and Effective Information Management,” Federal Communications Law Journal 59, no. 3 (2007): 547-573. 

Book Chapters

• Bleckley, Jeb and Joshua Hall. “School choice and post-Katrina New Orleans: an analysis.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Boettke, Peter and Daniel Smith. “Private Solutions to Public Disasters: Self-reliance and Social Resilience.” In The Economics of Unnatural and Unnatural Disasters, edited by W. Kern, 87-102. Kalamazoo, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2010.
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily. “Pastor’s Response in Post-Katrina New Orleans: Navigating the Cultural Economic Landscape.” In Culture and Economic Action, edited by L. Grube and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2015.
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr. “Community Resilience in New Orleans East: Deploying the Cultural Toolkit within a Vietnamese-American Community.” In Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global Opportunities and Challenges, edited by J. Rivera and D. Miller. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2010.
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily, Stefanie Haeffele, and Virgil Henry Storr. "Local Recovery: How Robust Community Rebound Necessarily Comes from the Bottom Up." In The Future of Disaster Management in the US, edited by Amy L. LePore. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2017.
• D'Amico, Daniel. “Rock Me Like a Hurricane!: How Music Communities Promote Social Capital Adept for Recovery.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Grover (née Agemy), Erin. “Improving Academics in the Aftermath: A Case Study of New Orlean's Experiment with Charter schools.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Haeffele-Balch, Stefanie and Virgil Henry Storr. “Austrian Contributions to the Literature on Natural and Unnatural Disasters.” In New Thinking in Austrian Political Economy (Advances in Austrian Economics, Vol. 19), edited by C. Coyne and V. Henry Storr. Emerald, 2015.
• Haeffele, Stefanie and Virgil Henry Storr. "Learning from Disasters in Mississippi." In Promoting Prosperity in Mississippi, edited by Brandon N. Cline, Russell S. Sobel, and Claudia R. Williamson. Starkville, MS: Mississippi State University Institute for Market Studies, 2018.
• Horwitz, Steven. “Doing the Right Things: The Private Sector Response to Hurricane Katrina as a Case Study in the Bourgeois Virtues.” In Accepting the Invisible Hand: Market-Based Approaches to Social Economic Problems, edited by M. White. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 
• Krasnozhon, Leonid and Daniel Rothschild. “Lessons from Post-flood Recovery of New Orleans and Prague.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Martin, Adam. “Uncertainty in the post-Katrina Big Easy.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Norcross, Eileen and Anthony Skirba. “The Road Home: Helping Homeowners in the Gulf after Katrina.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Runst, Petrik. “Entrepreneurship and Social networks in Post-Disaster Environments.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Skarbek, David. “Restricting Reconstruction: Occupational Licensing and Natural Disasters.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Skarbek, Emily. “Earth, Wind, and Fire! Federalism and Incentive in Natural Disaster Response.” In The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.

Policy Papers and Testimony

• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Daniel Rothschild, “Disastrous Uncertainty: How Government Disaster Policy Undermines Community Rebound,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 9, 2007.
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Daniel Rothschild, “Hosting a Disaster.” Mercatus on Policy 23, 2008
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “The Entrepreneur's Role in Post-Disaster Community Recovery: Implications for Post-Disaster Recovery Policy,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Primer No. 6, 2008.
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, “Filling the Civil Society Vacuum: Post-Disaster Policy and Community Response,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 22, 2009.
• Coyne, Christopher, Peter Leeson, and Russell Sobel, “The Impact of FEMA Reorganization: Implications for Policy,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 24, 2009. 
• Gordon, Peter and Richard Little, “Building Walls against Bad Infrastructure Policy in New Orleans,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Primer No. 10, 2009.
• Gordon, Peter and Sanford Ikeda, “Power to the Neighborhoods: The Devolution of Authority in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 12, 2007.
• Haeffele, Stefanie, Anne Hobson, and Virgil Henry Storr, "Coming Back from COVID-19: Lessons in Entrepreneurship from Disaster Recovery Research," Mercatus Policy Series, COVID-19 Crisis Response, 2020.
• Horwitz, Steven, “Making Hurricane response More Effective: Lessons from the Private Sector and the Coast Guard during Katrina,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 17, 2008 and in The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound, edited by E. Chamlee Wright and V. Henry Storr. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010.
• Leeson, Peter, “The Impact of FEMA on U. S. Corruption: Implications for Policy,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 8, 2007.
• Leeson, Peter and Russell Sobel, “Flirting with Disaster: The Inherent Problems with FEMA,” Cato Institute, Policy Analysis No. 573, 2006.
• Marlett, David, “Insuring Resiliance: The Potential Impact of an Optional Federal Charter on the Social Resiliency of Hazard-Prone Regions,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 27, 2010.
• Nelson, Robert, “Fire in the National Forest System: California Solutions for a California Problem,” Mercatus on Policy, No. 16, 2008.
• Rothschild, Daniel, Emily Chamlee-Wright and Mario Villarreal-Diaz, “Rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: What's Working,” Mercatus Center, Written Testimony, 2007.
• Skarbek, Emily, “The Housing Voucher Choice Program: More Than Just a Lagniappe for New Orleans,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 13 and Mercatus on Policy No. 4, 2007.
• Sutter, Daniel, “Ensuring Disaster: State Insurance Regulation, Coastal Development, and Hurricanes,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 14, and Mercatus on Policy, No. 5, 2007.
• Sutter, Daniel, “Building a Safe Port in the Storm: Private vs. Public Choices in Hurricane Mitigation.” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 21, 2008.
• Sutter, Daniel, “Optional Federal Chartering of Insurers and Hurricane Risk,” Mercatus on Policy 46. 2009a.
• Sutter, Daniel, “Reversing a Rising Tide: Goals for Reforming the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association,” Mercatus on Policy, No. 48, 2009b.
• Yandle, Bruce and Mark Adams, “Regulatory Flexibility: How to Mitigate the Effects of Katrina and Other Disasters,” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Comment No. 28, 2010.  
• Yandle, Bruce, Daniel Rothschild, Daniel Sutter, Frederic Sautet, Peter Boettke, Steven Horwitz, Tim Roemer, Veronique de Rugy, Curtis Melvin, Local Knowledge: Is the Gulf Coast Open for Business?. Mercatus Center, 2008.

Mercatus Working Papers

• Chamlee-Wright, Emily, “After the Storm: Finding Success in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina,” Mercatus Working Paper, 2006. 
• Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Virgil Henry Storr, "The Political Economy of Post-Katrina Recovery: Public-Choice Style Critiques from the Ninth Ward, New Orleans," Mercatus Working Paper, 2008.
• Cordis, Adriana and Jeff Milyo, “Don't Blame the Weather: Federal Natural Disaster Aid and Public Corruption, ” Mercatus Working Paper, 2015.
• Gordon, Peter and Richard Little, “Can New Orleans Benefit from market Approaches to Flood Protection?,” Mercatus Working Paper, 2008.
• Gordon, Peter and Sanford Ikeda, “Gales of Creative Destruction: Innovative Governance and Entrepreneurial Development in Post-Katrian New Orleans,” Mercatus Working Paper, 2007.
• Martin, Adam, “Amateur Public Choice and Regime Uncertainty in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” Mercatus Working Paper, 2008.
• Storr, Virgil Henry and Stefanie Haeffele-Balch, “Can Decentralized Bottom-Up Post-Disaster Recovery be Effective?,” Mercatus Working Paper, 2010.
• Sutter, Daniel. “The Market for Hurricane Mitigation: Regulatory or Market Failure?,” Mercatus Working Paper, 2008a.
• Sutter, Daniel. “Insurance and Societal Vulnerability to Hurricanes,” Mercatus Working Paper, 2008b.
• Sutter, Daniel. “Policy Uncertainty and the Market for Wind Insurance,” Mercatus Working Paper, 2009.

PhD Dissertations & MA Theses

• Grover (née Agemy), Erin, "Improving Academics in the Aftermath : A Case Study of New Orleans’ Experiment with Charter Schools," MA Thesis, George Mason University, 2009.
• Grube, Laura, "Disaster Recovery and the Role of Self-Governance," PhD Dissertation, George Mason University, 2015. 
• Skarbek, Emily, "The Political Economy of Urban Reconstruction, Development, and Planning," PhD Dissertation, George Mason University, 2009.