In a couple of days, Benoit will give a talk at the 9th Conference on Public Economics At the Regional and Local level (PEARL) in Helsinki, in Finland organized by the VATT (Government Institute for Economic Research). The slides are now available on the blog, and the paper is still online here
A few weeks ago (here, or there, among many others) I discussed shortly the increase of the frequency of natural catastrophes. An example is perhaps Australia, with major droughts over the past 10 years; a summer heat wave in Victoria, Australia, caused the massive bushfire in 2009; the flooding in Queensland this winter, as well as a huge cyclone. So it looks like Australia is experiencing that increase of the frequency of natural catastrophes.