Originally published as the International Journal of Social Economics Volume 35 Numbers 7 + 8, 2008
Guest edited by: Walter Block
This issue is devoted to an analysis of the Katrina situation in the wake of the Hurricane that swept through the Gulf Coast of America in August 2005.
In the social sciences, it is rare that we ever witness anything like a controlled experiment. North Korea and South Korea, and East and West Germany, have come closest, perhaps, in this regard. But with Hurricane Katrina we have a strong competitor, at least in a time series sense, if not from a cross section approach, as in these two other cases. That is, there are not one but two New Orleanses: the one before this natural and/or man made disaster, and the one afterward. They are both located in the same geographical terrain, but that pretty much exhausts the resemblance between them. The former was a thriving, functioning city. Yes, it had its problems, but they were not so different than those of a half dozen other cities in the US. Afterward, the Big Uneasy resembled not so much a metropolis in this country, but rather one in any of the very poorest sections of Africa or Asia.
In this Special Issue there is analyses from a whole host of disciplines including sociology, public health, social work, city planning, geography, urbanism, history, political science, architecture, engineering (never forget those collapsing levies), ethics, philosophy, accounting, management, marketing, finance, international relations, criminology, law and ethnic studies.
Contents:
The broken trailer fallacy: Seeing the unseen effects of government policies in post-Katrina New Orleans
Edward P. Stringham, Nicholas A. Snow
What is seen and unseen on the Gulf coast
Max Raskin, Scott A. Kjar, Robert Rahm
Institutions, incentives, and disaster relief: The case of the Federal Emergency Management Agency following Hurricane Katrina
Christopher Westley, Robert P. Murphy, William L. Anderson
Price gouging in the Katrina aftermath: free markets at work
Dreda Culpepper, Walter Block
Market-based “disaster relief”: Katrina and the casino industry
Douglas M. Walker, John D. Jackson
Beliefs, bias, and regime uncertainty after Hurricane Katrina
Art Carden
An economic and ethical analysis of the Katrina disaster
Robert W. McGee
Replacing incomplete markets with a complete mess: Katrina and the NFIP
Andrew T. Young
Hurricane Katrina and the levees: taxation, calculation, and the matrix of capital
William Anderson, Scott A. Kjar
The finance of Katrina
J. Stuart Wood
Who's to blame for all the heartache?: A response to anti-capitalistic mentalities after Katrina
Daniel J. D'Amico
Taking advantage of disaster: misrepresentation of housing shortage for political gain
Vedran Vuk
Signaling effects of commercial and civil society in post-Katrina reconstruction
Emily Chamlee-Wright
The futile fight against (human) nature: A public choice analysis of the US Army Corps of Engineers – special focus on Hurricane Katrina
Jennifer Dirmeyer
About the International Journal of Social Economics
The International Journal of Social Economics aims to provide its readers with a unique forum for the exchange and sharing of information in this complex area of economics. The journal presents the social-economic problems, as expressed by economists, philosophers, political scientists, historians and business academics, with their consequent ethical considerations.
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