  The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a country quality of
governance moderates the effect of natural disasters on startup activity within
that country. We test our hypotheses using a panel of 95 countries from 2006 to
2016. Our findings suggest that natural disasters discourage startup activity
in countries that have low quality governance but encourage startup activity in
countries that have high quality governance. Moreover, our estimates reveal
that natural disasters effects on startup activity persist for the short term
(1-3 years) but not the long term. Our findings provide new insights into how
natural disasters affect entrepreneurship activity and highlight the importance
of country governance during these events.
