A safe asset's real value is insulated from shocks, including declines in GDP from rare macroeconomic disasters. However, in a Lucas-tree world, the aggregate risk is given by the process for GDP and cannot be altered by the creation of safe assets. Therefore, in the equilibrium of a...

The potential for rare macroeconomic disasters may explain an array of asset-pricing puzzles. Our empirical studies of these extreme events rely on long-term data now covering 28 countries for consumption and 40 for GDP. A baseline model calibrated with observed peak-to-trough disaster sizes...

A new options-pricing formula applies to far-out-of-the money put options on the stock market when disaster risk dominates, the size distribution of disasters follows a power law, and the economy has a representative agent with Epstein-Zin utility. The elasticity of the put-options price is one...

Long-term data show that the dynamic efficiency condition r>g holds when g is represented by the average growth rate of real GDP if r is the average real rate of return on equity, E(re ), but not if r is the risk-free rate, rf .

Mortality and economic contraction during the 1918–1920 Great Influenza Epidemic provide plausible upper bounds for outcomes under the coronavirus (COVID-19).