Human development and catastrophic risk: less vulnerable, more exposed?

Theories of catastrophic and existential risk raise concern about hazards capable of causing large-scale or irreversible harm, yet they pay limited attention to how such risks are shaped by cross-country differences in development. This raises a critical question: does higher human development correspond to uniformly safer structural conditions in the face of catastrophic disruption? Using the Hazard–Vulnerability–Exposure framework and cross-sectional data for 156 countries, this study examines how the Human Development Index (HDI) is associated with selected vulnerability and exposure proxies, focusing the empirical comparison on these two components of the framework. The results reveal a clear development gradient. Higher HDI values are associated with lower values on the selected vulnerability indicators and higher values on the selected exposure indicators, which capture digital and technological integration. Higher development therefore does not correspond to uniformly lower values across the selected risk-relevant indicators. Rather, countries at higher development levels exhibit a different configuration of structural conditions, characterized by lower levels of structural vulnerability and greater digital and technological interdependence. These findings support a development-sensitive approach to risk governance across stages of development.