Expert opinion and probabilistic volcanic risk assessment

We present data from an international survey of scientists working at volcanic observatories concerning eruption likelihoods. The scientists were asked a range of questions using different types of phrasing. The data suggest that the phrasing of questions affects the ways in which probabilities are estimated. In total, 71% of respondents (N = 70) exhibited some form of inconsistency in their answers between and/or within different question formats. The data also allow for an analysis of the use of scaling in probabilistic assessment, and the use of quantitative versus verbal risk measurements. However, some respondents were uncomfortable with providing any numerical probability estimate, perhaps suggesting that they considered the uncertainty too high for meaningful judgements to be made.     

债务抵押凭证（CDO）的风险与信用评级研究

债务抵押凭证（CDO）是金融市场重要的风险转移工具,具有信用级别高、收益水平高的特征,其市场规模扩展迅速。但这种金融创新产品因较复杂的基础资产和分层结构,产生出异于传统公司债券的风险特征。很多投资者没有真正了解其潜在风险,且信用评级质量不佳,致使CDO投资者在次贷危机中遭受严重损失甚至破产。因此有必要深入了解CDO所具有的风险特征和CDO产品信用评级的一般方法,纠正现有评级方法的不足,分析其对次贷危机的影响。     

Corporate Credit Spreads and the Sovereign Ceiling in Latin America

We exploit a panel of 72 US dollar-denominated bonds issued by Latin American publicly listed firms between 1996 and 2004, a period of regional financial crises, to answer the following three questions: (1) Is sovereign risk a statistically and economically significant determinant of the corporate credit spread, controlling for firm- and bond-specific characteristics? (2) If yes, do market participants apply the sovereign ceiling rule adopted by rating agencies in the pricing of our bond market data? And (3) how do market views compare with the rating agencies ceiling policy for each corporate bond? We find strong evidence of an economically and statistically significant effect of sovereign risk on corporate spreads across different panel econometric specifications and bonds. Moreover, markets do not apply the ceiling rule in 77–90% of the bonds we sample and these findings are consistent with rating agencies’ policies toward the latter for about 50% of the firms. These results are robust to the inclusion of firm- and bond-specific variables derived from the structural approach to credit risk and to the business cycle in each country.     

Multivariate decision accuracy and the presentation of accounting information

Since multivariate graphics provide spatial integration, summarization and comparison of information, they may provide the means for improving decision-making. This study tests for the incremental benefit of multivariate graphics over a tabular format, by comparing the outcomes for tabular–graphical combination formats with tabular-only formats in an experimental environment. This is an area where research has been sparse and where existing results are inconsistent.The study examines the interactive influence of presentation format and information complexity on multivariate decision accuracy, to determine the most effective presentation format for the performance of multivariate decision tasks of varying complexity. Results show a significant interaction between presentation format and information complexity to affect multivariate decision accuracy. When information complexity is low, presentation format has no impact on accuracy. However, when information complexity is high, the tabular-alone format shows the highest accuracy. The advantages of graphical and pictorial formats reported in earlier studies are not supported, a finding which has significant implications for the manner of disclosure of financial statements through graphical means.     

On long-term credit risk assessment and rating: towards a new set of models

Institutional investors are supposed to assess credit risk by using a combination of quantitative information such as option models and qualitative assessments. Although option models can be easily constructed, they are not so suitable for the assessment of long-term credit risk that is required by institutional investors. This is mainly because the probability of bankruptcy varies so widely depending on the timing of assessment. We propose a new set of assessment models for long-term credit risk which does not necessarily use stock prices and may incorporate business cycles. The new grand model consists of the two pillars: a long-term cash flow prediction model and a credit risk spread assessment model. The calculated values derived from these models are effectively usable for reasonable calculation of risk spreads. It is quite interesting to see that our investigation indicates that rating bias may exist in the credit risk assessment of the market.     

Do rating agencies’ decisions impact stock risks? Evidence from European markets

This article analyses the effect of rating agencies’ decisions on stock risks for European issuers concerning five kinds of events. Our approach is an extension of dummy variable regression event study methodology, using a GARCH(1,1) estimation to capture simultaneously the impact on both systematic and specific stock risks. This new methodology allows us to obtain both global results by categories of rating decisions and individual results, event by event. We document, globally, a positive impact of upgrading on systematic risk, a negative impact of rating confirmation on specific risk, and no significant impact in all other cases. Regarding event-by-event results, the proportion of rating actions exhibiting a significant effect on risk is almost always observed between 20% and 30%. The weak evidence of a global effect on systematic risk may be due to the lack of informational content of the rating decisions on the stocks’ risk, or the existence of rebalancing effects between systematic and idiosyncratic risks. Furthermore, it should be noticed that the decline in volatility in case of a rating affirmed is an insight of the certification role played by the agencies.     

The effect of accounting question response formats on student performance

The purpose of the research is to examine the effect of different response formats on student performance on introductory accounting exam questions. The study analyzes 1104 accounting students’ responses to quantitative questions presented in two formats: multiple-choice and fill-in. Findings indicate that response format impacts student performance on most of the questions, in favor of the multiple-choice. A second goal is to discover how effectively wrong-answer options in multiple-choice questions capture students’ actual incorrect thinking. Analyses of the fill-in questions showed students wrote in a wide array of incorrect answers, many of which would not have been offered as multiple-choice distracters. Answers filled in were often based on misguided logic that test question authors might never have anticipated. Students’ incorrect reasoning on quantitative fill-in questions can inform instructors on how to proactively address student misconceptions and write more effective multiple-choice items.     

资产证券化信用评级制度与系统性风险分析

资产证券化的复杂性和高度杠杆化加剧了投资者与发行人之间的信息不对称问题,信用评级制度作为信息披露手段,在减轻信息不对称、促进风险资产定价和保护投资者利益等方面发挥着重要作用.但若缺乏有效的制度保障,资产证券化信用评级过程中隐含的对系统性风险的累积和传导危险则会对金融系统稳定产生负面作用.我国信用评级制度缺乏良好的法律监管环境和充分的市场竞争,难以支持资产证券化产品的多样化发展和规模的快速扩大趋势.对此,需从宏观审慎监管框架的确立、信用评级监管权力的统一和制度完善以及评级行业的市场化推进等方面完善信用评级制度.     

The Risk Effects of Acquiring Distressed Firms

Existing research shows that bidder default risk increases following acquisitions due to a rise in post‐acquisition leverage and managerial risk‐taking actions offsetting the potential for asset diversification. This study examines whether the risk effects of acquiring distressed targets are fundamentally different and investigates possible explanations for any dissimilarities. Bidders often acquire relatively smaller distressed targets in domestic and related industries and have a higher initial target stake and more financial flexibility, thereby minimizing risk exposure. Controlling for several characteristics of bidder investment behaviour in both types of deals, however, we find that the increase in bidder default risk is substantially larger when acquiring distressed firms.     

Roland W. Scholz: Environmental Literacy in Science and Society. From Knowledge to Decisions. Cambridge University Press 2011

This study pursues the following aims: to examine how news stories use frames, emotions, and uncertainty to present environmental risk information; to identify which aspects of risk issues they highlight; and to analyze how these stories’ representations of risk and uncertainty might differ according to the sources they use. Content analysis of 641 news stories in South Korea over the last decade yields three findings: (1) reassurance was the most frequently used news frame, while uncertainty and emotion were used less often than expected; (2) news stories using government/industry/experts as sources vs. activists/lay people highlighted different news frames and risk information; and (3) the two most frequently used uncertainty presentation formats were single point estimate and verbal estimate. This study contributes to existing literature on the roles of media in environmental risk communication in two ways. First, it examines the specific formats journalists use to present uncertainty about risks. Second, it integrates news frames with the emotional characteristics of risk communication and with differences in risk information characteristics according to source. Implications are discussed regarding how a better understanding of news representations of risk could inform and enhance cooperation between experts and journalists, and lead to more effective environmental risk communication. Finally, this content analysis provides a stepping stone for future research that could further investigate and test how publics respond to risk messages that have varying permutations of emotional content and risk presentation formats.     

Bayesian Fraud Risk Formula for Financial Statement Audits

In this article we extend the work of Loebbecke et al. (1989 ) and illustrate the use of an evidential reasoning approach for developing fraud risk analysis models under the Bayesian framework. New formulations facilitating fraud risk assessments are needed because decision tree approaches previously used to develop analytical models are not appropriate in complex situations involving several interrelated variables. To demonstrate the evidential reasoning approach, a fraud risk assessment formula is derived and illustrated. The fraud risk formula captures the impact of the presence or absence of and interrelationships between the three ‘fraud triangle’ risk factors: Incentives, Attitude and Opportunities. The formula includes the impact of risks and controls related to these three fraud risk factors as well as the impact of forensic audit procedures and relevant analytical and other procedures that provide evidence for the presence or absence of fraud. This formula may be used in audit practice both to help plan the audit and to assess fraud risk sequentially as audit evidence is obtained.     

Risk Perception and Worry Related to Adolescents' Judgement of Three Types of Risk

The core aim of this study was to examine determinants of anticipated worry related to three types of risk among adolescents. The participants were Norwegian high‐school students aged 15–19 years (n = 335). They were students at 6 high schools and a total of 15 randomly selected school classes participated in the study. All the students were asked to fill in a self‐completion questionnaire. The response rate was 100 per cent. The participants were shown three video sequences of three‐minute conversations between a person and a listener discussing three risk sources, which each had developed into a problem (drug use, depression, and sexual abuse). The video sequences were shown to the students when they were in their classes. The results showed that there were gender differences in probability assessments as well as in anticipated worry related to the three types of risk. There were also differences in worry depending on the respondent's past experience with an identical or similar problem or risk. In addition to cognitive evaluations, own experience and gender, general worry, social support seeking, anxiety and depression significantly predicted worry. These variables explained 52 per cent of the variance. Worry may be a significant predictor of risk behaviour as well as decisions concerning risks and risk reduction. The results are related to the risk‐as‐feelings hypothesis (Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee and Welch) and other risk decision models are also discussed.     

Information needs and risk perception as predictors of risk information seeking

This paper introduces a theoretical framework that describes the importance of public's information sufficiency, risk perception, and self‐efficacy as predictors of intended risk information seeking behaviour. Based on theoretical assumptions, measurement instruments for relevant concepts were developed and validated using data from a mail questionnaire. Relationships among selected determinants of risk information seeking behaviour were analysed. Results indicate that information needs, risk perception, and current knowledge are direct predictors of intentions to seek information. Trust, engagement, social influence, and self‐efficacy affect risk perception and the need for information is influenced by engagement and social influence.     

Moody’s investors service response to the consultative paper issued by the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision “A new capital adequacy framework”

Moody's endorses the Basel Committee's proposal to use banks' internal risk assessments to refine the Basel Accord's risk weights on bank assets and commitments. External risk assessments, such as Moody's credit ratings, will likely play a supporting role as direct inputs into banks' internal rating systems and as tools for benchmarking and validating those systems. However, the widespread use of ratings in regulation threatens to undermine the quality of credit over time by increasing rating shopping, decreasing rating agency independence, and reducing incentives to innovate and improve the quality of ratings. This paper discusses how bank regulators can use external ratings in ways that mitigate the adverse incentives created by the resulting regulatory demand for rating agency services.     

The interplay between risk adjustment and risk rating in voluntary health insurance

Many regulated health insurance markets include risk adjustment (aka risk equalization) to mitigate selection incentives for insurers. Empirical studies on the design and evaluation of risk-adjustment algorithms typically focus on mandatory health insurance schemes. This paper considers risk adjustment in the context of voluntary health insurance, as found in Chile, Ireland, and Australia. In addition to the challenge of mitigating selection by insurers, regulators of these voluntary schemes have to deal with selection by consumers in and out of the market. A strategy for mitigating selection by consumers is to apply some form of risk rating. Our paper shows how risk adjustment and risk rating interact: (1) risk rating reduces the need for risk adjustment and (2) risk adjustment reduces premium variation across rating factors, thereby increasing incentives for consumers to select in and out of the market.     

An inductive reasoning approach for building system safety risk models of aviation accidents

An inductive reasoning approach is employed to develop a prototype hybrid decision support tool whose main objective is to build probabilistic causal models representing the safety risk involved in aviation accidents. In this context, 15 aircraft accidents representative of five major accident types are selected to build an initial seed for the case‐base of the prototype tool. Consequently, within each individual accident model, main clusters of causal factors are identified for inclusion in the initial seed, thereby improving, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the case‐base of the prototype tool. A new methodology developed specifically for indexing aviation accidents into databases is used for indexing the initial seed into the case‐base of the tool. The resulting product is a highly customized conversational decision support tool that provides solution possibilities in the form of probabilistic causal models of accident scenarios retrieved and ranked according to their similarity to the current accident that the intended user investigates.     

An explanatory analysis of perceived risk decision weights (perceived-risk attitudes) and perceived benefit decision weights (perceived-benefit attitudes) in risk-value models

Abstract

All decision making requires a trade-off between risks and values. While Markowitz defined risk as the variance of returns (thus reasoning that investors should consider it as undesirable), the more general risk–value framework allows risk to be defined as a person’s subjective judgments. Psychological risk–return models go further, decomposing observed behavior (risk taking) into two processes: (1) a judgment of benefits and risks and (2) a trade-off between perceived benefits and perceived risks, with a person-specific willingness to trade-off units of returns (benefits) for units of risk, conceptualized as attitude toward perceived risk (PRA) and attitude toward perceived benefits (PBA). PRA and PBA describe the degree to which people find perceived risks and benefits attractive, all other things being equal, and are assumed to be relatively stable across situations and domains. We test this assumption in an empirical study, checking the temporal stability of PRA and PBA (using the a Domain-Specific Risk-Taking [DOSPERT] scale ) and the cross-task stability of PBA (performing comparisons between the DOSPERT and the Columbia Card Task[CCT]). Finally, we explain both PRA and PBA using the Big Five personality dimensions and Stimulating–Instrumental Risk Inventory (SIRI), showing that PBA weights increase with openness to experience, while the negative effect of perceived risk on risk taking (PRA) increases with conscientiousness and decreases with stimulating risk taking. The results show that PBA and PRA can be treated as traits which, in some instances at least, are stable across time and tasks, and which can be partially explained by personality, providing a link to the idea of a personality dependent ‘ideal point’ for risk preference.     

信用风险缓释工具定价研究

通过对信用风险缓释工具定价进行研究得出:(1)CRM定价的主要影响因素包括无风险基准利率,标的债券的风险敞口、违约概率、违约损失率和期限,以及CRM期限等。(2)同期国债利率和央行票据利率作为CRM的基准利率较为恰当,且模型定价对不同期限、不同信用等级的CRM定价区分度较为合理,模型定价与CRM发行交易定价较为接近,适合我国现阶段CRM产品定价。(3)可以从完善CRM定价基础数据库、探索CRM定价无风险基础利率、创新CRM标的债券评级制度、引导CRM市场主体多元化和优化CRM市场做市商制度等方面提出CRM定价优化对策。