Erik HeitfieldThis paper examines how model uncertainty affects the price of catastrophe risk insurance. We use unique data on expected loss rate projections from seven hurricane risk models approved by regulators for use in Florida property insurance rate setting to quantify model uncertainty.

Every few months, someone in the superannuation industry declares that Australians now “need” around A$1 million to retire comfortably. It’s a big, scary number.

But consumer advocates say most people can retire with far less.

Independent estimates suggest something closer to $322,000 is enough for many retirees who own their own home. So who’s right – and what assumptions drive these wildly different targets?

Nils Gornemann, Eugenio Rojas, Felipe SaffieDoes global financial risk affect long-run growth? Using a panel state-space model for emerging and advanced small open economies, we measure the effects of U.S. monetary policy uncertainty shocks. A one-standard-deviation shock lowers the level of the stochastic trend in emerging markets by at least 25 basis points after three years, with little effect in advanced economies.

Dario Caldara, Haroon Mumtaz, and Molin ZhongWe characterize asymmetric tail risk across over one hundred U.S. macroeconomic and financial variables using a dynamic factor model with stochastic volatility. The model unifies growth-at-risk, inflation-at-risk, and sectoral heterogeneity through common factors whose volatility responds endogenously to shocks, combined with heterogeneous factor loadings.