How much risk does a heavy truck impose on highway safety? To answer this question, we look at the rapid influx of trucks during the shale gas boom in Pennsylvania. Using quasi-experimental variation in truck traffic, we isolate the effect of adding a truck to the road. We find an additional...

The presence of a heavy truck on the road can impose an externality if accidents occur that would not have otherwise. We find each additional truck on the road increases the risk of a truck accident—but also, at an even higher rate, the risk of a car-on-car collision. Our estimates imply two...

The presence of a heavy truck on the road can impose an externality if accidents occur that would not have otherwise. We find each additional truck on the road increases the risk of a truck accident--but also, at an even higher rate, the risk of a car-on-car collision. Our estimates imply two...

Recent events in the financial and insurance markets, as well as the looming challenges of a globally changing climate point to the need to re-think the ways in which we measure and manage catastrophic and dependent risks. Management can only be as good as our measurement tools. To that end,...

Hurricane Katrina did massive damage because New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were not appropriately protected. Wherever natural disasters threaten, the government - in its traditional role as public goods provider - must decide what level of protection to provide to an area. It does so by...

Insurance is an essential component of household and community resilience: it protects insureds financially against disaster losses, can encourage investments in cost-effective mitigation measures through premium reductions, and facilitates rebuilding of property and long-term recovery following...