IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/moneco/v100y2018icp35-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lack of preparation for rare events

Author

Listed:
  • Maćkowiak, Bartosz
  • Wiederholt, Mirko

Abstract

A new view of crises is proposed: A rare event occurs, consciously unprepared agents take bad actions, and catastrophic consequences follow. We model agents who prepare to act in different contingencies. They can process only a finite amount of information and thus cannot prepare perfectly for all contingencies. In equilibrium, agents equate the probability-weighted expected loss due to suboptimal action across contingencies, implying that the expected loss in a rare event is orders of magnitude larger than in normal times. Limited liability causes even less preparation for rare events and creates inefficiencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Maćkowiak, Bartosz & Wiederholt, Mirko, 2018. "Lack of preparation for rare events," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 35-47.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:100:y:2018:i:c:p:35-47
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2018.07.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393218303817
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2018.07.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2015. "Business Cycle Dynamics under Rational Inattention," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(4), pages 1502-1532.
    2. Laura L. Veldkamp, 2011. "Information Choice in Macroeconomics and Finance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9621.
    3. Patrick Bolton & Antoine Faure-Grimaud, 2009. "Thinking Ahead: The Decision Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1205-1238.
    4. George-Marios Angeletos & Alessandro Pavan, 2007. "Efficient Use of Information and Social Value of Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1103-1142, July.
    5. Luca Colombo & Gianluca Femminis & Alessandro Pavan, 2014. "Information Acquisition and Welfare," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 81(4), pages 1438-1483.
    6. Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Rare Disasters and Asset Markets in the Twentieth Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 823-866.
    7. Xavier Gabaix, 2012. "Variable Rare Disasters: An Exactly Solved Framework for Ten Puzzles in Macro-Finance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 645-700.
    8. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    9. Francois Gourio, 2012. "Disaster Risk and Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2734-2766, October.
    10. Sims, Christopher A., 2010. "Rational Inattention and Monetary Economics," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 4, pages 155-181, Elsevier.
    11. Mirko Wiederholt, 2010. "rational inattention," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics,, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson & Robert Barro & José Ursúa, 2013. "Crises and Recoveries in an Empirical Model of Consumption Disasters," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 35-74, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carola Binder, 2020. "Coronavirus Fears and Macroeconomic Expectations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 721-730, October.
    2. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.
    3. Alessandro Cantelmo, 2022. "Rare Disasters, the Natural Interest Rate and Monetary Policy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(3), pages 473-496, June.
    4. Donato Masciandaro, 2020. "Covid-19 Helicopter Money, Monetary Policy And Central Bank Independence: Economics And Politics," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 20137, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    5. Nimark, Kristoffer P. & Sundaresan, Savitar, 2019. "Inattention and belief polarization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 203-228.
    6. Giovanna Centorrino, 2020. "Covid-19 and the Search for the Common Good: The Case of Parmon Spa (Italy)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-23, August.
    7. Flynn, Joel P. & Sastry, Karthik A., 2023. "Strategic mistakes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    8. Bernardo Candia & Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2020. "Communication and the Beliefs of Economic Agents," NBER Working Papers 27800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ghouse, Ghulam & Bhatti, Muhammad Ishaq & Aslam, Aribah & Ahmad, Nawaz, 2023. "Asymmetric spillover effects of Covid-19 on the performance of the Islamic finance industry: A wave analysis and forecasting," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    10. Stanislav Anatolyev & Sergei Seleznev & Veronika Selezneva, 2021. "How does the financial market update beliefs about the real economy? Evidence from the oil market," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(7), pages 938-961, November.
    11. Hachem, Kinda, 2021. "Inefficiently low screening with Walrasian markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 935-948.
    12. Donato Masciandaro, 2020. "Ecb Helicopter Money: Economic And Political Economy Arithmetics," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 20138, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    13. Kizys, Renatas & Tzouvanas, Panagiotis & Donadelli, Michael, 2021. "From COVID-19 herd immunity to investor herding in international stock markets: The role of government and regulatory restrictions," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    14. Daniel Susskind, 2022. "Rational inattention and public signals," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(2), pages 225-255, February.
    15. Hibiki Ichiue & Maiko Koga & Tatsushi Okuda & Tatsuya Ozaki, 2019. "Households' Liquidity Constraint, Optimal Attention Allocation, and Inflation Expectations," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 19-E-8, Bank of Japan.
    16. Hanspal, Tobin & Weber, Annika & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2020. "Exposure to the COVID-19 stock market crash and its effect on household expectations," SAFE Working Paper Series 279, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.
    2. Mäkinen, Taneli & Ohl, Björn, 2015. "Information acquisition and learning from prices over the business cycle," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 585-633.
    3. Maćkowiak, Bartosz & Matějka, Filip & Wiederholt, Mirko, 2018. "Dynamic rational inattention: Analytical results," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 650-692.
    4. Mackowiak, Bartosz & Wiederholt, Mirko, 2011. "Inattention to Rare Events," CEPR Discussion Papers 8626, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Bianchi, Francesco, 2008. "Rare Events, Financial Crises, and the Cross-Section of Asset Returns," MPRA Paper 20831, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jan 2010.
    6. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    7. Chen, Heng & Luo, Yulei & Pei, Guangyu, 2014. "Too Much of a Good Thing: Attention Misallocation and Social Welfare in Coordination Games," MPRA Paper 59139, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Alexandre Kohlhas, 2018. "Asymmetric Attention," 2018 Meeting Papers 1040, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Chen, Heng & Luo, Yulei & Pei, Guangyu, 2015. "Attention misallocation, social welfare and policy implications," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 37-57.
    10. Angeletos, George-Marios & Iovino, Luigi & La'O, Jennifer, 2020. "Learning over the business cycle: Policy implications," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    11. Hasler, Michael & Marfè, Roberto, 2016. "Disaster recovery and the term structure of dividend strips," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 116-134.
    12. Aizenman, Joshua & Noy, Ilan, 2015. "Saving and the long shadow of macroeconomic shocks," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 147-159.
    13. Isoré, Marlène & Szczerbowicz, Urszula, 2017. "Disaster risk and preference shifts in a New Keynesian model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 97-125.
    14. Qunzi Zhang, 2021. "One hundred years of rare disaster concerns and commodity prices," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(12), pages 1891-1915, December.
    15. Robert Barro, 2023. "r Minus g," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 48, pages 1-17, April.
    16. George-Marios Angeletos, 2018. "Frictional Coordination," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 563-603.
    17. Rangan Gupta & Tahir Suleman & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "The role of time‐varying rare disaster risks in predicting bond returns and volatility," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 327-340, July.
    18. DiTraglia, Francis J. & Gerlach, Jeffrey R., 2013. "Portfolio selection: An extreme value approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 305-323.
    19. Broer, Tobias & Kohlhas, Alexandre N. & Mitman, Kurt & Schlafmann, Kathrin, 2022. "On the possibility of Krusell-Smith Equilibria," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    20. Bai, Hang & Hou, Kewei & Kung, Howard & Li, Erica X.N. & Zhang, Lu, 2019. "The CAPM strikes back? An equilibrium model with disasters," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(2), pages 269-298.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rare events; Disasters; Rational inattention; Efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:100:y:2018:i:c:p:35-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505566 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.