Use and Communication of Probabilistic Forecasts

Probabilistic forecasts are becoming more and more available. How should they be used and communicated? What are the obstacles to their use in practice? I review experience with five problems where probabilistic forecasting played an important role. This leads me to identify five types of potential users: Low Stakes Users, who don't need probabilistic forecasts; General Assessors, who need an overall idea of the uncertainty in the forecast; Change Assessors, who need to know if a change is out of line with expectatations; Risk Avoiders, who wish to limit the risk of an adverse outcome; and Decision Theorists, who quantify their loss function and perform the decision-theoretic calculations. This suggests that it is important to interact with users and to consider their goals. The cognitive research tells us that calibration is important for trust in probability forecasts, and that it is important to match the verbal expression with the task. The cognitive load should be minimized, reducing the probabilistic forecast to a single percentile if appropriate. Probabilities of adverse events and percentiles of the predictive distribution of quantities of interest seem often to be the best way to summarize probabilistic forecasts. Formal decision theory has an important role, but in a limited range of applications

Change the Regime – Change the Money: Bulgarian Banknotes, 1885-2001

The money we use has symbols and images on it that communicate information. One part of this are pictorial and symbolic elements that draw attention to aspects of the country that issuer is proud of and that convey the message that it wishes to convey. As one would expect, as regimes change, so do the banknotes. Bulgaria has a rich history of change having gone from being a (nominally) Ottoman principality to an independent Kingdom, an agrarian socialist state, a quasi-fascist Monarchy, a People’s Republic, and most recently, a Parliamentary Republic.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39894/3/wp509.pd

Entry and Survival: The Case of Foreign Banks in Norway

Banks have been engaging in foreign direct investment (FDI) for over 150 years. In doing so, they have had to deal with the problems of the liability of foreignness, generally without being able to depend on proprietary administrative or physical technology. Foreign direct investment in banking therefore provides many experiments in entry and survival in a comparable industry across countries and institutional environments. Within banking, the Norwegian case has a number of useful characteristics. First, there is a clear and recent starting point for the entry of foreign banks. Second, there is an interesting mix of entrants and abstainers, and entry strategies. Third, enough time has elapsed that one can start to observe failures and survivors. In Section 2 I review the history of the Norwegian banking system and especially policies towards foreign banks. In brief, Norway has a long history of closure to foreign banks. In Section 3 I examine which foreign banks did or did not enter Norway when the government liberalized entry. The banks that entered had divergent firm-specific resources and followed divergent strategies. I pay particular attention to issues of the foreign banks' prior experience in Norway itself and the foreign banks' advantages vis-à-vis domestic banks. In Section 4 I investigate the correlates of survival and exit among the foreign bank entrants. Survival factors include prior experience in Norway, the size of the entrant at start-up, and the size of the parent. Lastly, Section 6 is a summary and conclusion.

The Key to Risk Management: Management

The Barings, Daiwa Bank and Sumitomo Corp. financial debacles in the mid-1990s suggest that management failures rather than misfortune, errors, or complexity are a major source of the risk of financial debacles. These errors are systematic and are a concommittant of the structure of trading and of human nature. Risk management systems must take these facts into account.

Foreign Banks in the Pacific: Some History and Policy Issues

Foreign banks now dominate retail banking in the territories, commonwealths, and nations of the Pacific Islands. Generally, banking is highly concentrated, with two Australian banks dominating the Australian sphere of influence, and three French banks dominating the French sphere. The situation in the U.S. sphere is a little more diverse, though in all three spheres there are situations of monopoly. The foreign banks have certain desirable attributes but also limitations. Locally-owned banks have complementary strengths, but also over-riding weaknesses. Government-owned banks have had a particularly unsuccessful history as political lending has frequently led to the banks’ failure. On balance, banking in the region calls out for innovative responses.foreign banks, Pacific islands, bank failure

Internationalization and the Rearrangement of Ownership of Firms and Parts of Firms: Grindlays Bank, 1828-2000

Grindlays Bank, a British overseas bank whose operations spanned South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, has a particularly long and rich history. As a multi-unit organization, Grindlays provides a good example of the point that if one wishes to understand the internationalization process of such a firm — the mechanisms that determine the geographical scope of its operations — one must take into account the rearrangement of ownership of units (primarily branches). As Grindlays’ strategy changed, frequently as a function of changes in its ownership, Grindlays responded by buying or selling units. It also lost units to actions of governments. However, it is the rearrangement of ownership of branches that is the most provocative observation in that it suggests the hypothesis that strategic advantage in banks does not reside at the branch level.foreign direct investment,

Change the Regime – Change the Money: Bulgarian Banknotes, 1885-2001

The money we use has symbols and images on it that communicate information. One part of this are pictorial and symbolic elements that draw attention to aspects of the country that issuer is proud of and that convey the message that it wishes to convey. As one would expect, as regimes change, so do the banknotes. Bulgaria has a rich history of change having gone from being a (nominally) Ottoman principality to an independent Kingdom, an agrarian socialist state, a quasi-fascist Monarchy, a People’s Republic, and most recently, a Parliamentary Republic.banknotes, design, Bulgaria