Vulnerability traps and disasters: Levels of analysis and systemic approaches

The linking of the multi-dimensional process of shocks, resilience, and vulnerability can be done using three complementary economic perspectives: the macro of national economies, the micro of economic actors, and the meso of industry sectors. Beyond these three levels of analysis, a political economy of vulnerability traps makes it possible to identify systemic crises within societies and fragile states, as well as unregulated cumulative sequences where poverty leads to risk vulnerability and where catastrophes increase the level of poverty.