Tail risks and infectious disease: Influenza mortality in the U.S., 1900-2018.

Abstract

I use extreme values theory and data on influenza mortality from the U.S. for 1900 to 2018 to estimate the tail risks of mortality. I find that the distribution for influenza mortality rates is heavy-tailed, which suggests that the tails of the mortality distribution are more informative than the events of high frequency (i.e., years of low mortality). I also discuss the implications of my estimates for risk management and pandemic planning.