Past natural disasters can serve as a rudimentary guide to the likely economic effects of the hurricanes, but the unique characteristics of these two storms--including the devastation of a major city and the displacement of its population--clearly put us in uncharted territory. Nonetheless, I think it is useful to think about a natural disaster as having three relatively distinct phases.
Benefiting from the recapitalization, restructuring and stronger regulatory and supervisory systems in the post financial-crisis period, Asian financial markets have been performing well. Emerging Asia’s financial assets, as percent of their GDP, rose to 306.3, higher than the ratios for Latin American, African or European countries (155.1, 168.7 and 139.0, respectively), but lower than the world ratio of 401.5. 13.