Asteroid Economics is a behavioral economics theory that begins with the Asteroid Effect — when people become aware of existential threats at the societal level, they react reflexively. Instead of conserving or preparing, they accelerate. What should inspire restraint often produces indulgence, even frenzy.

From Versailles balls to pandemic luxury sales, from toilet paper hoarding to the Labubu craze, people grasp at immediacy instead of investing in what sustains.

This paradox sits within behavioral economics — scarcity signals, mortality salience, and nudges that amplify desire under stress — but extends beyond it. Asteroid Economics provides the systemic frame: why existential risk collapses horizons, accelerates consumption, and intensifies symbolic display.

The idea was first introduced in Psyche (“Why we’re shopping our way through Armageddon,” August 2025), developed further in working papers on SSRN and ResearchGate, and is now under peer review at Risk Analysis (Wiley).

Asteroid Economics is the psychology — and the political economy — of shopping our way through collapse.

New Working Paper (October 2025)

Asteroid Economics: The Paradox of Acceleration Under Existential Risk

This new working paper introduces Asteroid Economics as a framework for understanding why societies often accelerate activity under existential threat—spending, building, and signaling instead of conserving. It defines the Asteroid Effect, traces its patterns from ancient Egypt to COVID-19, and outlines a research agenda for testing how risk communication shapes collective behavior.

🔗 Read the full paper on SSRN →

© 2025 Monika Cooper. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

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