Catastrophic Incentives: Why Our Approaches to Disasters Keep Falling Short

Silver Award Winner, 2024 Nonfiction Book Awards

Societies are vulnerable to any number of potential disasters: earthquakes, hurricanes, infectious diseases, terrorist attacks, and many others. Even though the dangers are often clear, there is a persistent pattern of inadequate preparation and a failure to learn from experience. Before disasters, institutions pay insufficient attention to risk; in the aftermath, even when the lack of preparation led to a flawed response, the focus shifts to ...