Worst-case economics : extreme events in climate and finance / Frank Ackerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ackerman, Frank, author.

Series:

Anthem frontiers of global political economy.

Anthem Frontiers of Global Political Economy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Disasters--Economic aspects.

Disasters.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (198 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London, [England] : Anthem Press, 2017.

Summary:

In both climate change and financial crises, worst-case scenarios and disastrous risks are inescapable. Yet public policy often focuses on average or likely outcomes, minimizing the danger of extreme events. 'Worst-Case Economics: Extreme Events in Climate and Finance' explores the underlying causes and the remedies needed for the most serious climate and financial risks.

Contents:

Cover

Front Matter

Half-title

Title page

Copyright information

Dedication

Epigraph

Table of contents

List of figures

Chapter 1-17

Chapter 1 Introduction

Costs of Crisis

Beyond Whispers and Tweets

Once Upon a Textbook

Stuff Happens

Making Decisions in the Dark

What this Book is not

Chapter 2 Steam-Engine Economics

The Birth of a Notion

Mistakes Were Made

The Science of Gradualism

An Eighty-Year Odyssey

Brownian Motion in the Stock Market

Chapter 3 Beyond Homo Economicus

Shameless Appearances

Losing Gambles

The Law of Small Numbers

Rational Fools

Chapter 4 Big and Dirty

Technology and Information

Marketing and Market Structure

Pricing the Earth

Ecological Limits and Learning Curves

Chapter 5 Pictures of Improbability

Dice Games and the Normal Distribution

Normal Distributions in the Real World

Abnormal Markets

A Variable Amount of Variation

Chapter 6 Trillions, or only Hundreds?

Picturing the Power Law

The Devil May not be in the Details

Fat Tails and Bad Weather

Too Hot to be Normal

Chapter 7 Zipf's Law and Other Stories

Explaining Power Laws

Power Law Skeptics

The Science of Extremes

Rice Piles and Self-Organization

Balancing a Chopstick

Chapter 8 Ants and Traders

Noise Traders and Insect Behavior

Intermittent Markets

Moving at the Speed of Gossip

Chapter 9 Too Big to Ignore

From Inequality to Instability

Pareto's Law: The Shape of Inequality

The Rich get Richer

The Invisible Fistfight

Chapter 10 Climate Tipping Points and Known Unknowns

Choosing a Disaster

Sherlock Holmes and Bayesian Probability

Highway to Hell

Climate Sensitivity

Chapter 11 Predators and Prey

Macroeconomics and the Minsky Moment

A Cycle or a Crash?

Beyond Optimism.

The Longest-Lived Predator

Chapter 12 Good Enough for Government Work

Full Employment, Now and Forever

Cost-Benefit Analysis Comes to Washington

Benefits and Biases

In Praise of Inefficiency

Chapter 13 Fat Tails and the Failure of Forecasting

Calculation or Guesstimates?

Monetizing Warming

The "Dismal Theorem"

Chapter 14 Misunderstanding Risk

Insurance and its Limits

The Wrong Explanation of Risk

The Equity Premium Puzzle

Market Myopia

Is There a Climate Premium Puzzle?

Chapter 15 Choices Beyond Calculation

The Price of Precaution

The Economics of Ignorance

Thresholds for Precaution

Decaffeinated Cost-Benefit Analysis

Scenario Analysis

Chapter 16 Who won World War II?

Losing the Peace

Postwar Planning

Crisis Management as a Way of Life

Sacred Values

Tweets Versus Reality

Chapter 17 Conclusion

A Model of Instability

Making Policy for Extreme Events

Decision Making Without Algorithms

End Matter

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed November 17, 2017).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-78308-709-9

OCLC:

1007049918