Tail Risk of Contagious Diseases

Abstract

Applying a modification of Extreme value Theory (thanks to a dual distribution technique by the authors on data over the past 2,500 years, we show that pandemics are extremely fat-tailed in terms of fatalities, with a marked potentially existential risk for humanity. Such a macro property should invite the use of Extreme Value Theory (EVT) rather than naive interpolations and expected averages for risk management purposes. An implication is that potential tail risk overrides conclusions on decisions derived from compartmental epidemiological models and similar approaches.

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• Statistical mechanics of complex networks
• Power-law distributions in empirical data
• On the statistical properties and tail risk of violent conflicts
• Are your data really Pareto distributed?

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