Since the fall of 2008, option smiles have been clearly asymmetric: out-of-the-money currency options point to large expected exchange rate depreciations (appreciations) for high (low) interest rate currencies, suggesting that disaster risk is priced in currency markets. To study the price of...

This paper incorporates a time-varying intensity of disasters in the Rietz-Barro hypothesis that risk premia result from the possibility of rare, large disasters. During a disaster, an asset's fundamental value falls by a time-varying amount. This in turn generates time-varying risk premia and...