@booklet {martin_averting_2014,
	title = {Averting Catastrophes: The Strange Economics of Scylla and Charybdis},
	year = {2014},
	month = {jun},
	publisher = {Harvard Environmental Economics Program},
	type = {Discussion Paper},
	address = {Cambridge, Massachusetts, {USA}},
	abstract = {How should we evaluate public policies or projects to avert, or reduce the likeli- hood of, a catastrophic event? Examples might include inspection and surveillance programs to avert nuclear terrorism, investments in vaccine technologies to help respond to a {\textbackslash}mega- virus," or the construction of levees to avert major ooding. A policy to avert a particular catastrophe considered in isolation might be evaluated in a cost-benet framework. But be- cause society faces multiple potential catastrophes, simple cost-benet analysis breaks down: Even if the benet of averting each one exceeds the cost, we should not necessarily avert all of them. We explore the policy interdependence of catastrophic events, and show that con- sidering these events in isolation can lead to policies that are far from optimal. We develop a rule for determining which events should be averted and which should not.},
	author = {Martin, Ian W.R. and Pindyck, Robert S.}
}
