Why do people save? A strand of the literature has emphasized the role of 'precautionary' motives; i.e., private agents save in order to mitigate unexpected future income shocks. An implication is that in countries faced with more macroeconomic volatility and risk, private saving should be...

This paper uses a dynamic optimization model to estimate the welfare gains that a small open economy can derive from insuring against natural disasters with catastrophe (CAT) bonds. We calibrate the model by reference to the risk of earthquakes, floods and storms in developing countries. We find...

We study the daily behavior of supermarket prices and product availability following two recent natural disasters: the 2010 earthquake in Chile and the 2011 earthquake in Japan. In both cases there was an immediate and persistent effect on product availability. The number of goods available for...

This paper studies the endogenous determination of financial openness. We outline a framework where financial openness is endogenously determined by the authority's choice of financial repression as a taxation device, and where the private sector determines endogenously the magnitude of capital...