In this talk, I will review some recent work on extreme events, their causes and consequences. The review covers theoretical aspects of time series analysis and of extreme value theory, as well as of the deterministic modeling of extreme events, via continuous and discrete dynamic models. The applications include climatic, seismic and socio-economic events, along with their prediction. Two important results refer to (i) the complementarity of spectral analysis of a time series in terms of the continuous and the discrete part of its power spectrum; and (ii) the need for coupled modeling of natural and socio-economic systems. Both these results have implications for the study and prediction of natural hazards and their human impacts. A substantial part of the talk will deal with an endogenous business cycle (EnBC) model and with the way that EnBCs affect the impact of natural hazards on a dynamic economy. An out-of-equilibrium fluctuation-dissipation result for macroeconomics is inferred from the model and confirmed by the analysis of US economic data.
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