As the number of independent countries increases and their economies become more integrated, we would expect to observe more multi-country currency unions. This paper explores the pros and cons for different countries to adopt as an anchor the dollar, the euro, or the yen. Although there appear...

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- About the Authors -- Introduction -- 1 Growth Models with Exogenous Saving Rates (the Solow-Swan Model) -- 2 Growth Models with Consumer Optimization (the Ramsey Model) -- 3 Extensions of the Ramsey Growth Model -- 4 One-Sector Models of Endogenous Growth -- 5...

A new options-pricing formula applies to far-out-of-the money put options on the overall stock market when disaster risk is the dominant force, the size distribution of disasters follows a power law, and the economy has a representative agent with Epstein-Zin utility. In the applicable region,...

Rare events (RE) and long-run risks (LRR) are complementary elements for understanding asset-pricing patterns, including the average equity premium and the volatility of equity returns. We construct a model with RE (temporary and permanent parts) and LRR (including stochastic volatility) and...

Long-term data show that the dynamic efficiency condition `rg` 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(r^e)`, but not if `r` is the risk-free rate, `r^f`. This pattern accords with a simple disaster-risk model...

Consider the finance of an exogenous path of public expenditure, G(t), with taxes and public debt issues. In the absence of unexpected default, borrowing does not allow the government to escape taxes in a present-value sense. But the choices of how much to borrow and in what form affect the...

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...