Today I have found that the effect of natural disasters on an economy is profondly different depending on the size of your economy. As previously stated, neighboring countries economies stand to gain when a country is hit by disaster, such as the Haiti earthquake, because of reconstruction or aid contracts. This only stands true in small economies, such as Haiti. In smaller economies when a disaster hits it destroys most capital goods, and infrastructure leaving it helpless to fix itself and necessary for foreign aid to rebuild, because the reconstruction contracts will be given usually to foreign companies there will be no economic boost felt locally from the disaster. Where as in a larger economy, such as the US economy after Hurricane Katrina, reconstruction and aid contracts can be awarded locally adding a short term economic boost. Also, smaller economies suffer more long term losses as there GDP are impacted alot greater. The president of Haiti reports his country as having lost 35-50% of its GDP, while the American economy was not even greatly effected by Katrina. This illustrates how a the effects of natural disasters are minimul in a large economy due to it's ability to correct the problem internally, but are extreme on smaller economies usually dooming them to a slow economic recovery. If you would like to read on this in more detail please read the following articles:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/26/2830727.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301195.html