Most of the literature on the economics of catastrophes assumes that such events cause a reduction in the stream of consumption, as opposed to widespread fatalities. Here we show how to incorporate death in a model of catastrophe avoidance, and how a catastrophic loss of life can be expressed as...

Modern investors face a high-dimensional prediction problem: thousands of observable variables are potentially relevant for forecasting. We reassess the conventional wisdom on market efficiency in light of this fact. In our model economy, which resembles a typical machine learning setting, N...

We define a sentiment indicator based on option prices, valuation ratios and interest rates. The indicator can be interpreted as a lower bound on the expected growth in fundamentals that a rational investor would have to perceive in order to be happy to hold the market. The lower bound was...

The standard framework in which economists evaluate environmental policies is cost-benefit analysis, so policy debates usually focus on the expected flows of costs and benefits, or on the choice of discount rate. But this can be misleading when there is uncertainty over future outcomes, when...