One measure of the ex ante cost of disasters is the welfare gain from shortening their expected duration. We introduce a stochastic clock into a standard disaster model that summarizes information about progress (positive or negative) towards disaster resolution. We show that the stock market...

China's markets gained 3.86% around December 4, 2012, when the Party announced anti-corruption reforms. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) with higher past entertainment and travel costs (ETC) gained more. NonSOEs gained in more liberalized provinces, especially those with high past ETC,...