Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster ─ Lessons in Local Entrepreneurship

Rebounding after disasters like tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods can be daunting. Communities must have residents who can not only gain access to the resources that they need to rebuild but can overcome the collective action problem that characterizes post-disaster relief efforts.

Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster argues that entrepreneurs, conceived broadly as individuals who recognize and act on opportunities to promote social change, fill this critical role. Using examples of recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Hurricane Sandy in Rockaway, New York, the authors demonstrate how entrepreneurs promote community recovery by providing necessary goods and services, restoring and replacing disrupted social networks, and signaling that community rebound is likely and, in fact, underway. They argue that creating space for entrepreneurs to act after disasters is essential for promoting recovery and fostering resilient communities.

Virgil Henry Storr is Senior Research Fellow and Director of Graduate Student Programs at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University, USA. He is also Research Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and the Don C. Lavoie Research Fellow in the Program in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at George Mason University. His writings on community recovery redevelopment, comparative political economy, culture markets, and Bahamian studies have been published or are forthcoming in Rationality and Society, the Journal of Urban Affairs, the Cambridge Journal of Economics, the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, the Review of Austrian Economics, and several other scholarly publications.

Stefanie Haeffele-Balch is Associate Director of Graduate Student Programs at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University, USA. She was previously Presidential Management Fellow Program Analyst in the Fire Aviation Management, Emergency Disaster Operations Branch of the US Forest Service. She is a PhD student at George Mason University.

Laura E. Grube is Visiting Instructor of Economics at Beloit College, USA. She is a PhD candidate at George Mason University, USA.