Before revision: The adverse effects of financial crises in terms of output losses or output growth below its potential can be treated like losses from catastrophic events which have a low likelihood but a large impact in the event that they occur. We therefore analyze GDP losses in terms of frequency (number of loss events per period) and severity (loss per occurrence).
After revision: We study cross-country GDP losses due to financial crises in terms of frequency (number of loss events per period) and severity (loss per occurrence).