Impacts of government risk management policies on hedging in futures and options:LPM2 hedge model vs. EU hedge model

The main objective of this study is to compare the impacts of government payments and crop insurance policies on the use of futures and options measured from a downside risk hedge model with the impacts analyzed by the expected utility (EU) hedge model. Understanding the effects of government-provided risk management tools on the private market risk management tools, such as futures and options, provides value to both crop farmers and policy makers. Comparison of the impacts from the two hedge models shows that crop farmer will hedge less in futures under the LPM2 model than under the EU hedge model. This finding indicates that model misspecification is another reason for the phenomenon that farmers actually hedge less in futures than predicted by the EU model. From the perspective of exploring new research techniques, this study applied two relatively new simulation concepts, copula simulation and conditional kernel density approach, to make the simulation assumptions less restrictive and more consistent with observations. The copula simulation applied in this study allows yield and price to have more flexible joint distribution functions than multivariate normal; the conditional kernel density approach used in farm yield simulation enables the variance of farm yield varies with county yield rather than being constant.Down-side Risk, LPM2 Hedge Model, Government Payments, Crop Insurance Policies, Copula Simulation, Conditional Kernel Density, Agricultural Finance,

Empirical investigation of risk management practices

In risk management research, dealing with known risks and helping companies foresee new risks are areas for subject matter experts. In practice, risk management is often perceived as a set of formal tools and procedures that must be delegated to the professionals. Despite this overall perception of risk, general managers, department managers, and other senior or line managers in organizations deal with questions associated with risk on a daily basis. They are, therefore, sometimes—even without consciously realizing it—involved in risk management practices. This article aims to analyze \u27managers\u27 involvement in risk management by empirically exploring how managers identify, assess, and respond to risks. Based on thematic analysis of observational and interview data, management practices used to manage risks were identified, and risk management as a non-linear process that is anchored on the strategic and operational levels and supported by learning from failures was defined. Two different ways of risk management can co-exist in an organization as a result of formal Enterprise Risk Management implementation

Singapore Global Convention on Corporate Ethics and Risk Management

Boards have a variety of interests and responsibilities relating to risk appetite, management and governance. They need to maintain a balance between enterprise and control and must ensure that governance, compliance and risk management practices do not become a “hinder” and, particularly, obstacles to creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and progress rather than a “help”? Boards should review risk management approaches, adopt an integrated approach, take a balanced view and seek to simultaneously achieve multiple objectives by exploring new enablers such as the adoption of performance support tools. Questions are raised about risk Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and its implementation, board attitudes, practices, and responses, whether risk management needs to be redirected and more value could be obtained from ERM, mapping and tracking risks, cyber security issues, the ethical dimension and professionalism in risk management. Boards themselves can represent a significant risk. Scepticism and challenge, openness and diversity, a widening of the talent pool, more positive and pro-active approaches, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, and leadership in risk management are required. A theme paper written to encourage discussion and debate ahead of a forthcoming global convention in Singapore and published by India's Institute of Directors as: Coulson-Thomas, Colin (2017), [Theme Paper] Singapore Global Convention on Corporate Ethics and Risk Management, www.iodglobal.com, [http://iodglobal.com/images/sgc2017/theme-paper.pdf, 20th November

An Insight into the Process, Tools and Techniques for Construction Risk Management

Investing in construction projects is not without risks. Risk management is considered an important aspect when making decisions in the construction industry—as it determines whether the construction project will be successful or will fail. Effective decisions are made based on certain predetermined criteria such as investigating the construction project in detail, generating good alternatives to manage risk, exploring the best options, etc., whereas, decisions can fail when the best suitable alternatives to manage risk are not made clear at the onset of a construction project, or logical assessment of project-specific criteria are not considered part of the process. As a result, risks can possibly have an adverse effect on the delivery of construction projects with respect to its objectives. Therefore, this chapter will present the numerous tools and techniques that are available to support the various phases of the risk management process in construction projects

Assessing Adolescents who display Harmful Sexual Behaviours: The Challenge of the Developmental Transition

In the 1980’s research began to highlight how adolescents who display harmful sexual behaviour and adult sexual offenders were two distinct groups with distinct characteristics. This distinction led to the development of a range of assessment tools and interventions that are tailored to the specific group’s risks and needs. The process of assessment and risk management of harmful sexual behaviour is undertaken by a variety of statutory and non-statutory services, these services have different assessment focuses creating assessments that differ in structure and content. This thesis uses a mixed methods approach to explore the assessment of adolescents who display harmful sexual behaviour as they transition to adulthood. It explores the developmental transition, risk assessment tools, the link between risk assessment and risk management and the experience of the assessment process. The qualitative research focuses on interviews with young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour and professionals that work with them (Police, Probation, Youth Offending Service, Social Work and Clinical). The quantitative research focuses on case file information exploring how risk assessment tools analyse risk and how the assessment tools relate to each other. This research highlights how there are challenges to assessing adolescents who display harmful sexual behaviour as they transition to adult services. There are issues in relation to strategic alignment, organisational alignment, and role and goal alignment within the assessment process. There are difficulties establishing the context for risk assessment and identifying risks associated with harmful sexual behaviour, issues with assessing and evaluating sexual risk and how risk is managed, monitored and reviewed. There are also concerns in relation to consultation, communication and intervention. These issues not only have an impact of the effectiveness of the assessment process but also have an impact on the experiences of those involved within the process. The research findings highlight key factors that could improve the effectiveness of the risk assessment and risk management processes including greater clarity about professionals’ roles and responsibilities and how create an overarching multi-agency framework. It highlights the need for a more standardised approach to assessment and risk management, with increased training for professionals and access to resources, improved monitoring and reviewing processes, and more effective communication between professionals and between the professional and the young person

Development of a Framework to Evaluate Human Risk Towards Sustainable Risk Management

Risk managers are constantly faced with the challenge of making decisions at various levels of their organizations. One of the challenges, which often times is unavoidable, lies in assigning a monetary value to human risks. Such challenge necessitates engineering managers to make educated decisions on the level of risk that the organizations and businesses should accept when it comes to human. The purpose of this study is to suggest a suitable framework that captures this aspect of engineering Risk Management in order to make rational and sustainable decisions about such assessed risk. This will be accomplished by exploring the tools, techniques, and methods implemented to evaluate the human risk in the decision making process by risk managers. The study attempts to address a fundamental question that risk managers strive to seek a clear and definite answer to the question are the benefits gained from assigning a monetary value to human life worth taking the risks, efforts, costs required to achieve such benefits?

Reducing Wooden Structure and Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Disaster Risk through Dynamic Risk Assessment and Management

In recent years, severe and deadly wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires have resulted in an increased focus on this particular risk to humans and property, especially in Canada, USA, Australia, and countries in the Mediterranean area. Also, in areas not previously accustomed to wildfires, such as boreal areas in Sweden, Norway, and in the Arctic, WUI fires have recently resulted in increasing concern. January 2014, the most severe wooden town fire in Norway since 1923 raged through Lærdalsøyri. Ten days later, a wildfire raged through the scattered populated community of Flatanger and destroyed even more structures. These fires came as a surprise to the fire brigades and the public. We describe and analyze a proposed way forward for exploring if and how this increasing fire incidence can be linked to concomitant changes in climate, land-use, and habitat management; and then aim at developing new dynamic adaptive fire risk assessment and management tools. We use coastal Norway as an example and focus on temporal changes in fire risk in wooden structure settlements and in the Norwegian Calluna vulgaris L. dominated WUI. In this interface, the fire risk is now increasing due to a combination of land-use changes, resulting in large areas of early successional vegetation with an accumulation of biomass, and the interactive effects of climatic changes resulting in increased drought risk. We propose a novel bow-tie framework to explore fire risk and preventive measures at various timescales (years, months, weeks, hours) as a conceptual model for exploring risk contributing factors and possibilities for risk management. Ignition is the top event of the bow-tie which has the potential development towards a fire disaster as a worst case outcome. The bow-tie framework includes factors such as changes in the built environment and natural habitat fuel moisture content due to the weather conditions, WUI fuel accumulation, possibly improved ecosystem management, contribution by civic prescribed burner groups, relevant fire risk modeling, and risk communication to the fire brigades and the public. We propose an interdisciplinary research agenda for developing this framework and improving the current risk understanding, risk communication, and risk management. This research agenda will represent important contributions in paving the road for fire disaster prevention in Norway, and may provide a model for other systems and regions.publishedVersio

Risk Management: Impact Of The Macroeconomic Variables In The Stock Market Sectors

This research enhances the importance of the risk management and decision analysis, specifically addresses the impacts of macroeconomic variables in the stock market.  The theoretical framework covers the evolution of investment analysis tools from portfolio management to recent financial theories applied to the Mexican Stock Market. In one of the recent works, Francisco Lopez, a Mexican researcher discovered evidences of different impacts of macroeconomic variables in the Mexican stock exchange market at a productive sector level.  The scope of this work is to expand and continue to exploring these findings.  The strategy is to apply statistical analysis over longitudinal data to identify and understand such impacts to the Mexican stock market. Volatility and risk impacts in the market create a challenging environment to the decision makers; analysis models could be enhanced to include these macroeconomic variables and assess impacts on specific productive sectors; the application of this knowledge will provide direct benefits to the market, the productive sectors and to the economy participants

Suicide risk assessment in the emergency department:an investigation of current practice in Scotland

Background: Suicide is a global public health issue. Approximately one third of individuals who complete suicide have attended an emergency department in the year preceding their death. The aim of this study was to investigate current suicide risk assessment practices across emergency department clinicians in Scotland.Methods: A mixed‐methods design was employed. A total of 112 surveys for emergency department clinicians were posted to 23 emergency departments in Scotland between March and September 2016. Follow‐up semi‐structured interviews were also conducted exploring clinician's experiences of suicide risk assessment. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.Results: Fifty‐one emergency department clinicians across 17 emergency departments completed the survey. Thirty‐five (68.6%) participants were currently using a suicide risk assessment tool; with most using locally developed tools and proformas (n = 20, 62.5%) or the SAD PERSONS scale (n = 13, 40.6%). Remaining participants (n = 16, 31.4%) did not use suicide risk assessment tools during assessment. Variation in practice was found both across and within emergency departments. Six clinicians participated in follow‐up interviews, which identified four major themes: Clinician Experiences of Suicide Risk Assessment; Components of Suicide Risk Assessment; Clinical Decision‐Making; and Supporting Clinicians.Conclusions: There is substantial variation in current practice, with around two‐thirds of clinicians using a variety of empirically and locally developed tools, and a third using their judgement alone. Clinicians find suicide risk assessment a challenging part of their role and discuss the need for increased training, and appropriate and helpful guidelines to improve practice