Management of environmental and social risks and topics in the banking sector - An empirical investigation

This paper investigates how environmental and social (E&S) risks and topics (i. e. E&S issues that are important in terms of adaptation to a changing business environment) are integrated in the banking sector. Despite banks’ key role in steering financial flows towards sustainable development, little is currently known as to whether and how banks integrate E&S aspects into their management control systems and whether this integration translates into E&S performance. Building on prior studies in the environmental management control literature, we design a conceptual model in which we link contextual factors, a proactive strategy approach, E&S management controls, and E&S performance. Following common practice in the banking sector, we differentiate between two paths of E&S management controls: risk management (value protection) and topic management (value creation). Based on survey data for a small sample of 50 European banks, we find evidence that contextual factors, reflected in the perceived power and legitimacy of clients, voluntary standard setters and NGOs, are positively related to a proactive strategy approach. This proactive strategy translates into both topic and risk management. Yet, in the next step, only topic management is positively related to the E&S performance of a bank, but not risk management.     

Global environmental risks: between political hazards and policy decisions

Environmental risks are both decision forcing situations and action forcing events. Rethinking the nature, scientific soundness and democratic character of environmental policy decisions have become critical political issues. And, although the environmental policy approach to address environmental risks enjoys ample support, the newly acquired custody has not been assumed without a degree of political hazard. It is this subject matter which circumvents the analysis of the risk political model, which Munch characterizes as a contingency of double political risks. Since environmental policy inaction is not an option, my interest here is simultaneously with a workable and legitimate model of reaching decisions driven by demands that set explicit goals, acceptable to concerned parties, implementable by policies, with positive impact on the protection against environmental risks. Filtered through the medium of deliberation, environmental risk protection is likely to gain public support and grow into a collective project, thus possibly offsetting the contingency of political hazards. A democratic model of deliberation, however, must be tested not simply by its formal procedural attributes, but also by its ability to deliver. Hence a deliberate model without explicit time frameworks will not do. Any deliberative process preoccupied with environmental risks must seriously consider the pragmatics of time . This implies stipulations of time limits per decision units. After all, time frameworks are embedded within the structuring of rules and decision-making processes, and as such, time has been transformed into both a scarce and a non-renewable resource. This is the more relevant in the context of environmental policy as the intensification of decision-making has been exacerbated in the process of globalization where scientific, technological and economic developments have generated a host of global environmental problems increasingly difficult to address in any decisive form.     

Management of catastrophic risks considering the existence of early warning systems

It is crucially important to incorporate the notion of early warning systems in insurance mathematics. We develop the theory of an arrival process taking into account an early warning system, and we use it to create appropriate actuarial models. Then, we formulate a stochastic optimization problem to find an investment strategy for the management of a fund from the perspective of a risk-averse government. The solution is given using the Föllmer-Schweizer strategy.     

金融城域网的建设与应用

目前,我国的银行业已建成了技术先进的网络体系,重要的业务系统都已上线运行,并实现了数据集中管理。但基于保密和安全性考虑,金融系统之间的网间互联非常有限．严重制约和影响了整个金融系统之间信息和数据的共享。因此,通过区域性金融系统之间网间互联的金融城域网,     

Influences of individual-level characteristics on risk perceptions to various categories of environmental health and safety risks

Over the last five decades, social science researchers have examined how the public perceives the risks associated with a variety of environmental health and safety (EHS) hazards. The body of literature that has been emerged diverse both in the methodology employed to collect and analyze data and in the subject of study. The findings have confirmed that risk perceptions vary between groups of individuals as well as between categories of EHS risks. However, the extant literature on EHS risk perceptions has failed to provide empirical insights into how risk perceptions can be best explained according to the interplay of both (1) the category of EHS hazard appraised and (2) the prominent individual-level characteristics that best explain observed risk perception differences. This study addresses this deficiency in the literature by providing insights into the individual and cumulative roles that various individual-level variables play in characterizing risk perceptions to various categories of EHS risks including ‘agentic risks’ like street drug use and cigarette smoking, ‘emerging technological risks’ like nanoparticles and cloning, and ‘manufacturing risks’ like air and chemical pollution. Our data are drawn from the 2009 Citizens, Science, and Emerging Technologies national study of United States households that investigated public perceptions of EHS risks, traditional and emerging media use, and various individual characteristics like personal demographics, socioeconomic factors, and perceptual filters. The findings show that some categories of EHS risks like those associated with emerging technologies may be more easily predicted than other categories of risks and that individual-level characteristics vary in their explanative power between risk categories even among a single sample of respondents.     

Management decision-making relating to occupational risks: the role of 'grey data'

This paper reports upon the findings of pilot work research being carried out with the collaboration of a large employer in the UK construction sector. The term 'grey data' is introduced and defined and a pilot grey data review relating to occupational injury risks is described. The results are used as the basis for a preliminary investigation into the utility of grey data in management decision-making relating to occupational risks. Nine factors are identified as important to the managers, these factors falling into two groups, viz. role considerations and subject considerations. It is recommended that future research might investigate the relative importance of these two groups of factors to managers, specifically in relation to occupational risk decision-making.     

以遥感监测管理整治城市被污染水体

要建立国家级遥感监测管理机制 第一,提高监测频度.针对36个重点城市开展每季度一次监测,其他地级以上城市每年一次监测.开展此项工作需要的卫星遥感数据量较大,目前国产及国外商业卫星的观测能力是完全可以满足监测需求的,建议推动此项工作.从长期看,根据《国家民用空间基础设施中长期发展规划(2015-2025年)》,着力发展高空间、时间和光谱分辨率的高分光学星座,实现全球范围内精细化观测的数据获取能力,完全使用国产卫星数据针对城市复杂水体的遥感动态监测将逐渐成为可能.     

Public awareness and perception of environmental,health and safety risks to electricity generation: an explorative interview study in Switzerland

Well-informed public preferences are key to enabling successful and sustainable energy transitions worldwide. However, limited explorative evidence exists on what the public already knows and wants to know about the electricity generation technologies and their Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) risks. Understanding these issues is important for preparing informational materials and facilitating formation of informed preferences. We present results of an explorative interview study with 12 Swiss people. Despite the public debate on energy in Switzerland, we still identify significant awareness and knowledge gaps as well as misconceptions related to both technologies and their EHS risks. For accidental risks, the people tend to think beyond probabilities and consequences and consider further aspects, such as risk controllability and trust in experts and authorities. Most importantly, we find that people are able and tend to think of the electricity system as a whole portfolio: they actively realize the need to deploy multiple electricity technologies and accept some of the EHS risks. We conclude with concrete recommendations for preparing informational materials on electricity sector transitions in Switzerland and elsewhere. We also argue that future social research on energy should pay more attention to public perception of whole technology portfolios rather than single technologies.     

Public perception and responses to environmental pollution and health risks: evaluation and implication from a national survey in China

Concerns have been raised among policy-makers, researchers and Chinese citizens regarding the widespread environmental degradation that has occurred in China in recent decades. Years of environmental education and media coverage on pollution harm and health risks have not only provided information about pollution to the public, but have also strengthened people’s concerns. However, an ‘intense focus’ on pollution is far from sufficient; at present, it is necessary to assess to what extent the public can identify specific environmental conditions and whether they are ready to cope with potential health risks from pollution. Through face-to-face surveys on trains and at railway stations nationwide, we investigated public experiences of environmental pollution accidents, perceptions of local environmental risks (focused on air and water quality) and responses to local environmental conditions. By comparing public perceptions with official environmental monitoring data-sets, we concluded that the accuracy of perceptions related to four environmental factors ranged from 40 to 60% at the individual scale. Furthermore, the accuracies increased approximately 2–10% at the county scale and 10–30% at the city scale, highlighting the possible benefits of collective intelligence in helping the public to identify existing environment conditions more accurately. Additionally, despite great concerns about pollution and health, public attitudes toward coping with the dangers of pollution and health risks were found to be indifferent. Our study revealed factors at the individual, social and governmental levels that led to low levels of perception accuracy and response scores. Thereout, we stressed potential pathways to improve the accuracy of public perception and the positivity of responses. The survey results indicate that there is a long way to go before the public is well prepared to cope with the risks of pollution; as a consequence, it is necessary to improve both personal environmental awareness as well as governmental, social and commercial responses to pollution events.     

Residential property values in a multinodal urban area: New evidence on the implicit price of location

The monocentric model predicts a housing price gradient from the central business district, and it follows that the extension of this model to account for modern multinodal metropolitan areas would predict housing price gradients from multiple employment centers. Empirical analysis using hedonic regression techniques for the estimation of price gradients in a multinodal context is limited. This study extends prior work by exploring nonlinear housing price gradients in a multinodal urban area with an unusually robust database of housing sales transactions, and using a geographic information system for spatial analysis. The results confirm the importance of non-CBD employment centers, a strong if asymmetric CBD price gradient, and significant nonlinear gradients from such other urban amenities as major retail sites and highways.     

Mitigating risks in cross-border acquisitions

Compared to domestic acquisitions, cross-border acquisitions present greater challenges for buyers. This article analyzes the use of contingent payments, joint ventures, and toehold investments as potential mechanisms for reducing uncertainty in cross-border acquisitions. Toehold investments and earnout payments are associated with larger gains to buyers in domestic acquisitions, but not in cross-border acquisitions. The results indicate that joint ventures can be an effective mechanism to ameliorate the uncertainty associated with cross-border acquisitions in the presence of severe valuation uncertainties and country investment risks.     

ATM风险的应对方法

近年来,银行的ATM数量不断增多,使用范围不断扩大,给广大人民群众日常生活带来了很大便利.由于ATM大部分为室外墙壁嵌装,采用全天候、自助式操作,其防护力较差并难以实施特别保护.最近,全国各地出现了不少利用ATM盗取客户钱款的犯罪活动以及各种破坏ATM的恶性事件.如何保障银行ATM的安全使用、防范各种ATM犯罪、保护客户及银行的利益,已成为银行岖亟待解决的问题.     

2007年度全球风险态势回顾

在第二届国家风险管理论坛上，中国信保首席承保人梁志东依据该公司全球各区域业务经验和风险评估，对2007年度全球风险态势进行了梳理分析。他指出：在当前政治外部化、经济全球化和区域一体化日益加深的背景下，国家风险变化既是政治、社会、经济和金融等内部因素直接影响的结果，更是全球及区域性系统风险因素深刻作用的结果。     

The impact of geographical factors on churn prediction: an application to an insurance company in Madrid's urban area

Geography has previously been noted as a decisive factor in business literature. This paper provides evidence of the significant role geography plays in customer lapse behaviour in an urban environment. This novel approach is based on the idea that the customers who cancel all policies and leave the company are not randomly distributed; rather, a mimetic performance of close individuals is noted. The physical proximity of the customer to the geographical focus (strategical centre, as insurance offices) and the interaction with nearby customer are spatial factors that increase (or decrease) the probability of churning. An empirical analysis using more than 7000 spatially georeferenced offline customers of a Spanish insurance company in the urban area of Madrid (Spain) demonstrated that the customer's proximity to offices of such insurance company under study decreases the probability of churning, whereas high lapse risk was detected in customers in the surroundings of the company's competitor branches. In addition, we identified spatial autocorrelation in churn probability, thus demonstrating that the probability of churn of a customer increases if nearby customers churn.     

Market risks in asset management companies

This paper shows that revenues from a sample of publicly traded US asset management companies carry substantial market risks. Not only does this challenge the academic risk management literature about the predominance of operative risks in asset management, it is also at odds with current practice in asset management firms. Asset managers do not hedge market risks even though these risks are systematically built into the revenue generation process. This is surprising as shareholders would not optimally choose asset management companies as their source of market beta. They rather prefer to participate in alpha generation and fund gathering expertise of investment managers as financial intermediaries. At the very minimum, asset managers need to monitor their ‘fees at risk’ to understand what impact product design, benchmark choice and fee contract design have on revenue volatility. This calls for a much wider interpretation of the risk management function that too narrowly focuses on client risks.     

警觉拖欠款风险要及时

美国F公司历史付款情况良好,但是,2008年1月,F公司因公司资金周转困难拒收了中国4家出口企业共计500万美元的货物,并致使货物滞港1个月。这4家中国企业随即联合委托中国信保介入处理.     

我国的医疗责任风险及治理研究

科技进步和医疗卫生事业的发展,为我国医患纠纷带来新的特点.同时,随着社会文明的进步,我国患者的法律意识和维护自身权益的意识加强,使得我国由于医疗事故、意外和其他风险因素引起的医患纠纷愈演愈烈,严重影响我国整体医疗管理的正常发展.本文借由目前我国医患纠纷处理中面临困境的剖析,分析医疗责任风险点的转移、消除和管理,进而分析...