There seems to be headlines about floods, wildfires, or hurricanes every week. Scientists say this might be the new normal — that climate change is making natural disasters more and more common. Tatyana Deryugina is a leading expert on the economics of natural disasters — how we respond to them, how they affect the economy, and how they change our lives. And back when Tatyana first started researching natural disasters she realized that there's a lot we don't know about their long-term economic consequences. Especially about how individuals and communities recover. Trying to understand those questions of how we respond to natural disasters is a big part of Tatyana's research. And her research has some surprising implications for how we should be responding to natural disasters. This episode was hosted and reported by Jeff Guo. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Josephine Nyounai. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This is planet money from NPR.
The other day, I got a chance to talk to someone who really changed how I think about economics and economic research.
I kind of want to just ask you, do you remember me?
No.
You mean, have we met before?
Tatiana Derugana is an economist and a professor at the University of Illinois.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
I do not.
I have general.
No recollection whatsoever?
No.
That's amazing.
I'm so sorry.
Before she was a professor, Tatiana was a teaching assistant.
In fact, she was the teaching assistant for a class that I took in college.
Oh, wow.
I'm sorry, I don't remember you, but that's so cool.
Tatiana did not remember me at all, but I remembered her because the point of that class was to teach us how to write an economics research paper.