The object under consideration in this article is the total volume Vg,n(x1, …, xn) of the moduli space of hyperbolic surfaces of genus g with n boundary components of lengths x1, …, xn, for the Weil–Petersson volume form. We prove the existence of an asymptotic expansion of the quantity Vg,n(x1, …, xn) in terms of negative powers of the genus g, true for fixed n and any x1, …, xn ≥ 0. The first term of this expansion appears in the work of Mirzakhani and Petri [Comment. Math. Helvetici 94, 869–889 (2019)], and we compute the second term explicitly. The main tool used in the proof is Mirzakhani’s topological recursion formula, for which we provide a comprehensive introduction.

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Actually, the factor |x| in the remainder is missing in Ref. 12. This minor error has no implication for the purposes of the article of Mirzakhani and Petri or the further applications found in Ref. 7 and 19, but it would have contradicted our second-order expression (Theorem 1.5).

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