The 1990s were designated as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Yet, almost ten years after the close of that decade, many issues remain unresolved about the nature of disasters and their impact on human beings, other life forms and the natural environment. There is the...

We study the impact of risky human capital in life-cycle portfolio choice and survey the academic literature on the optimal asset allocation over the individual's life-cycle. A distinction is made between the riskless conception of human capital as having bond-like characteristics, and the risky...

Much of the literature on the economics of mortgage markets has studied the FRM-ARM choice made by individual borrowers. However, to decide if the outcome of such a choice is efficient or approximately so, it is necessary to explore the question of optimal risk-sharing in mortgage contracts. But...

Much of the literature on the economics of mortgage markets has studied the FRM-ARM choice made by individual borrowers. However, to decide if the outcome of such a choice is efficient or approximately so, it is necessary to explore the question of optimal risk-sharing in mortgage contracts. But...

Climate change provides one of the major communicative challenges for 21st century political leadership. This paper analyses how government communication can contribute to or hinder a communicative approach to the issue and the risks and uncertainties involved. The authors then go on to extend...

Scholars have long recognized the difficulties of communicating risk to the public. The rise of mobile gaming presents unprecedented opportunities for risk communicators to reach millions of potential users in engaging and potentially effective ways. Gamifying risk communication may help users...

This paper presents a possible solution to financial crises by addressing the core of the problem of systemic risk. To get there, it first illustrates a number of crises related situations before the definition of systemic risk is detailed. It then explains challenges of systemic risk and...

Nearly a century ago, Frank Knight famously distinguished between risk and uncertainty with respect to the nature of decisions made in a business enterprise. He associated generating economic profit with making entrepreneurial decisions in the face of fundamental uncertainties. This uncertainty...

Define the riskiness of a gamble as the reciprocal of the absolute risk aversion (ARA) of an individual with constant ARA who is indifferent between taking and not taking that gamble. We characterize this index by axioms, chief among them a “duality” axiom which, roughly speaking, asserts...

It is an undisputed fact that weather risk increases over time due to climate change. However, qualification of this statement with regard to the type of weather risk and geographical location is needed. We investigate the application of novel statistical tools for assessing changes in weather...