Mobile phone masts,social rationalities and risk: negotiating lay perspectives on technological hazards

This paper examines the responses of 37 participants in six focus groups to media representations of the health risks associated with mobile phone masts (‘base stations’) in the light of theoretical debates concerning non‐expert understandings of risks (variously characterised as ‘lay rationality’, lay epidemiology’, popular epidemiology’, ‘public knowledges’, ‘social rationality’ and ‘intuitive risk judgements’). In particular, the study discusses the extent to which two particular manifestations of such understandings – non‐mediated contextual and personal knowledges (‘multiple information sources’), and risk comparisons made between mobile phone masts and a variety of other perceived health risks – are prominent in respondents’ discursive constructions of risk. The paper suggests that analyses of risk responses such as these should differentiate clearly between classes of risks, and avoid suggestions that any particular type of risk response can be unproblematically mapped onto other risk scenarios.     

从个体理性到交往理性：东海铸锻担保圈风险的形成和化解

交往主体作为“经济人”,在市场的博弈过程中,追逐自身利益最大化是个体理性的选择,但在日常经济活动中,个体理性往往导致集体非理性结局。本文运用哈贝马斯的“交往理性”理论剖析了山东省聊城市东海铸锻破产案,在政府主导或外部力量适度干预下,通过谈判磋商,最终促进多家银行与企业达到交往理性的均衡状态,并据此提出了相关风险处置的顶层设计。     

Fish consumption advisories: knowledge,compliance and why people fish in an urban estuary

The risk to human consumers from contaminants in fish is often dealt with by issuing consumption advisories. The hypothesis that consumption rates vary as a function of knowledge about advisories was tested for 254 people fishing in the Newark Bay Complex, in the New York/New Jersey harbour estuary. Interviews were conducted in the complex throughout the fishing season. There were no ethnic differences in the percentage of people who fished, crabbed, or did both, Most people either fished or crabbed, but not both, which has implications for risk assessment and communication. Only 45% of the people interviewed had heard about advisories; American Indians had heard little about fish advisories, and Hispanics had heard little about crab advisories. There were ethnic differences in education, consumption patterns, and knowledge about advisories. Knowledge about consumption advisories and the amount of fish and crabs consumed are negatively correlated. Despite laws forbidding catching (and consuming) crabs from Newark Bay Complex, people continue to do so. A higher percentage of people who consume the most fish and crabs are aware of consumption advisories, compared to those at the low end of consumption, but people who consume no fish or crabs from the Newark Bay Complex have the highest level of knowledge. There are few differences in the ratings of the reasons for fishing between those who are, and are not, aware of advisories. Since people mainly fish and crab to be outdoors and with friends and family, relax, and commune with nature, risk assessors and communicators should acknowledge the social and aesthetic nature of the activity, and address consumption by separating the activity (fishing, crabbing) from the risk (pregnant women and children should limit consumption).     

Risk selection in the London political risk insurance market: the role of tacit knowledge,trust and heuristics

This study demonstrates that the basis of decision-making and risk selection in the London Political Risk Insurance (PRI) market is a combination of Art and Science with such factors as trust and reputation playing an important role. The study breaks new ground by uncovering and examining different methods and strategies of political risk underwriting employed in the insurance market, which does not rely on statistical tools as seen in more traditional insurance types. Adopting a grounded theory approach, the data was generated through 14 semi-structured and unstructured interviews conducted with PRI experts from five PRI companies and two leading political risk broking houses. The data also included documentation reviews and observations.     

Trust,acceptance and knowledge of technological and environmental hazards in Chile

Studies over the past decade have found empirical links between trust in risk management institutions and the risk perceptions and acceptability of various individual hazards. Mostly addressing food technologies, no study to date has explored wider possible relationships among all four core variables (risk, benefit, trust and acceptability) covering a heterogeneous group of hazards. Our prime objective was to ascertain effects among social trust in regulatory entities, and the public's perceived risk, perceived benefit and the degree of acceptability towards both technological and environmental hazards. We also assess whether trust in regulatory authorities is the cause (causal model) or a consequence (associationist model) of a hazard's acceptability for a wide and heterogeneous range of hazards on all four core variables. Using a web‐based survey, 539 undergraduates in Chile rated the five variables across 30 hazards. Implications for technology and environmental risk management organizations are discussed. Independent of the magnitude of the perceived risk or benefit surrounding a given hazard, or how knowledgeable the public claim to be of it, the trust sustained in regulatory institutions will either generate or be the consequence of public attitudes towards the hazard.     

Risk assessments at the Royal Netherlands Air Force: an explorative study

In this paper, differences in the assessment of mission risks and mission benefits between operators and members of the management level in the transport helicopter branch of the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) are studied. Results were obtained from a risk analysis that was conducted in accordance with RNLAF procedures. The analysis suggests that the two organizational levels have a coherent perception on risks despite their hierarchical position. Perceived measures of control – controllability – seem to induce the inclusion or the exclusion of what is appeared to be a risk. The analysis also suggests that risk management tools may obscure these perceptual differences. Risk management tools may therefore not be sufficient to attain safe operations. In discussions and future studies on risk management and on hierarchical differences in risk perception, this is something to take well notice of. Also, managers and others involved in risk management need to recognize the implications of using risk management instruments that are based on simplified models of risk. This research adds to the risk management theory because it connects multi-dimensional risk theory with actual organizational risk management practice.     

The influence of domain knowledge and task complexity on tax professionals'' compliance recommendations

This study examined how procedural knowledge and outcome expectations interact with task complexity when tax professionals develop recommendations for clients. Practicing tax professionals participated in two experiments. Results suggest that outcome expectations about whether a position can be defended are positively associated with aggressive recommendations. As complexity increases, professionals with more procedural knowledge (a) favor less aggressive recommendations and (b) rely more heavily on their outcome expectations. These findings illustrate the importance of accounting for knowledge as a two-dimensional construct.     

Thresholds,informality, and partitions of compliance

This paper aims to establish and explore the links between two threads in the public finance literature. One is the use of tax thresholds to partition taxpayers into those who are liable to pay tax and those who are not. The other is the notion of ‘informality’ as a central challenge for tax design and implementation. Several insights emerge. First, the results make clear that the term ‘informal’ as used in the literature is imprecise and can consequently be very misleading: the models reveal a range of compliant and non-compliant behaviors with very different welfare and revenue implications. Second, the various forms of behavior considered suggest optimal thresholds generally higher than would otherwise be the case, with quite complicated implications for the associated patterns of (non)-compliance. Third, when (as is realistic) firms and individuals face multiple tax and non-tax obligations, the setting of optimal thresholds is considerably more complex.     

Asymmetry,Complementarities, and State Dependence in Federal Reserve Forecasts

Forecasts are a central component of policymaking; the Federal Reserve's forecasts are published in a document called the Greenbook. Previous studies of the Greenbook's inflation forecasts have found them to be rationalizable but asymmetric if considering particular subperiods, for example, before and after the Volcker appointment. In these papers, forecasts are analyzed in isolation, assuming policymakers value them independently. We analyze the Greenbook forecasts in a framework in which the forecast errors for different variables are allowed to interact. We find that allowing the losses to interact makes the unemployment forecasts virtually symmetric, the output forecasts symmetric prior to the Volcker appointment, and the inflation forecasts symmetric after the onset of the Great Moderation.     

Risk forecast as work practice: between codified and practical knowledge

If the use of meteorological data has progressively expanded in tackling different sources of risk, less developed is by contrast a reflection on how meteorological systems apply in local contexts and to what extent that locality may affect the use and the content of forecasting recipients. By focusing on a wildfire forecasting, I show how forecasting practice cannot be reduced to the implementation of meteorological devices; it rather takes shape in the articulation between the technical device and different sources of knowledge – tacit, practical and ‘profane’. This articulation work, this study gives account of, reveals some specific challenges in the introduction of forecasting systems in risk management.     

Bounded rationality in credit consumers’ payment protection insurance decisions: the effect of relative cost and level of cover

A previous study found that credit consumers’ decisions to purchase payment protection insurance (PPI) were surprising insensitive to changes in cost and level of cover. This was investigated further in a randomized-groups experiment in which these two factors and the cost of credit alternatives without PPI were systematically manipulated. High street bank customers (N?=?215) were presented with realistic PPI purchase scenarios and a questionnaire assessing their willingness to pay (WTP) for PPI and perceptions of its usefulness. It was found that: (1) WTP and PPI decisions were insensitive to relatively large changes in level of cover; (2) the perceived usefulness of Premium and Basic levels of cover were not significantly different, although their usefulness was a significant predictor of PPI decisions and (3) sensitivity of PPI decisions to changes in cost was dependent on the cost of credit without PPI. The first two findings are explained in terms of simplified mental representations and the evaluability of insurance cover. It is concluded that further research on the effects of the relative cost of insurance is needed.     

宏观经济因素、企业家信心与公司融资选择

本文研究经济周期、信贷风险、信贷配给、股市表现和企业家信心对公司融资选择的影响,发现宏观经济上行时,公司的融资偏好为股权—债务,而宏观经济衰退时,公司的融资偏好则调整为债务一股权;信贷配给增加后,股权融资的概率上升;银行不良贷款不影响公司融资选择;企业家对经济前景越有信心,债务融资的可能性就越大。研究结果表明,我国上市公司不存在单一的股权融资偏好,而且公司融资决策基本符合最优融资顺序理论。     

Efficiency,Scale Economies,and the Risk/Return Performance of Real Estate Investment Trusts

Estimates from a directional output distance function are used to construct a risk/return frontier that defines the best-practice management technology for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). We model REIT performance as a production process in which each REIT produces a desirable output (return) and an undesirable output (risk) using inputs of managerial effort and financial capital. The results suggest that ignoring the effects of risk yields a management technology that is significantly different from one that incorporates risk. In addition, market valuation is inversely related to inefficiency and directly related to leverage.     

Measures of risk associated to regulations compliance: a laboratory experiment on the use of common-pool resources

The present research examined the influence of different risk perspectives by the use of four different target persons (who could be affected: abstract person, self, specific person, and specific others) and of four different questionnaire answer formats (rating, open percentage, open, and closed frequency) on risk assessments. It was assumed that subjects use two different systems in terms of probabilistic reasoning: a distributional approach for abstract targets leading to higher risk estimates and a singular approach for specific targets leading to lower risk assessments. According to unrealistic optimism (UO) research (showing higher risk assessments for an abstract person than for self), the assumption was that risk assessments for a specific (named) target lead to lower risk assessments compared to an abstract target. Further, common quantitative answer formats for assessing risk were compared to explore differences in risk estimates. The hypotheses were tested using data of a sample of 512 students from a Bavarian university. The frequently confirmed finding of UO could be replicated with both rating scale and open frequency scale, which appeared to be more sensitive compared to the other used scales. However, UO disappeared when the comparison target was specific. Further, risk assessments for an abstract target were highest within every answer format and lowest for specific targets. Furthermore, results revealed that the type of answer format has a moderating effect on the extent of the influence of risk perspective on risk assessments. Overall, this study gives evidence that both the chosen scale and the risk perspective strongly influence risk assessments. Results aim to contribute to the research fields of quantitative assessment of perceived risk. They suggest that probabilistic reasoning in regard to risk not only underlies motivational or cognitive ego-defensive mechanisms but is rather presumably caused by the use of different systems of inferential strategies.     

Confidence,opinions of market efficiency,and investment behavior of finance professors

We identify finance professors’ opinions on the efficiency of the stock markets in the United States and assess whether their views on efficiency influence their investing behavior. Employing a survey distributed to over 4,000 professors, we obtain four main results. First, most professors believe the market is weak to semi-strong efficient. Second, twice as many professors passively invest than actively invest. Third, our respondents’ perceptions regarding market efficiency are almost entirely unrelated to their trading behavior. Fourth, the investment objectives of professors are, instead, largely driven by the same behavioral factor as for amateur investors–one's confidence in his own abilities to beat the market, independent of his opinion of market efficiency.     

Insights into the reception and acceptance of risk messages: nuclear emergency communication

The objective of this paper is to test whether the effect of variables such as knowledge, attitudes, trust, risk perception, and psychometric risk characteristics changes in the different stages of risk-related information processing. To address this question, a distinction is made between two information-processing steps, reception (measured as a person’s ability to retain the information communicated) and acceptance (measured as a person’s level of agreement with the communicated information). An empirical study was conducted, using a radiological accident (2008) in Belgium as a communication case study. Face-to-face interviews were conducted on a large sample of Belgian population representative with respect to province, region, level of urbanization, gender, age, and professionally active status (N?=?1031) and among the population living in vicinity of the accident (N?=?104). All factors were measured on reliable scales (Cronbach’s α?>?.75). The reception–acceptance model was used to produce new insights into risk communication. The results demonstrate that knowledge was the driving factor only for the reception of risk messages, while heuristic predictors such as psychometric risk characteristics, attitudes, and trust were most influential for the acceptance of risk messages. It is discussed how the results will facilitate a more thorough understanding of information processing and how they could be used to design more focused risk communication strategies.     

Audit exemptions and compliance with tax and accounting regulations

We examine small firms’ compliance with tax and accounting regulations before and after a change in the threshold for mandatory auditing. Prior to 2011, all Norwegian firms were required to be audited. In 2011, a law change allowed small Norwegian firms to choose not to be audited. After this change, the Norwegian Directorate of Taxes conducted on- and off-site inspections of a representative sample of 2117 Norwegian firms, with a focus on compliance with specific requirements in tax and accounting regulation. We use the results from these inspections to construct a compliance quality score (CQS). We find that the firms that chose to opt out of auditing have lower CQS than do firms that chose to continue to be audited; that the CQS of firms that chose not to be audited declined after opting out; and that some of the opt-out firms fully mitigated the decline in CQS by engaging external accountants or auditors to prepare their annual financial statements. The results should be of interest to regulators considering increasing the thresholds for mandatory auditing, as our results show that (i) firms that choose not to be audited can experience a decline in CQS after opting out and (ii) CQS can be maintained at the same level as before if opt-out firms engage external consultants that assist in preparing the annual accounts.     

Self-perceptions, government policies and tax compliance in Germany

The policy of choice to fight tax non-compliance is an increase in deterrence, i.e. fines and audits, which seems to be well-grounded theoretically as the economics of crime justifies such an increase of the expected costs of illegal activities. In this paper, the impact of subjectively perceived deterrence on undeclared work is analyzed for the German case. Germany is particularly interesting because it considerably increased deterrence to fight tax non-compliance recently. The data set used for this analysis contains several waves of survey data conducted between 2004 and 2008. According to our evidence, (subjectively perceived) deterrence has an impact on undeclared work, but the influence of social norms is similarly important.     

Bounded rationality,adaptive behaviour,and asset prices

This paper develops a simple heterogeneous agent model (HAM) of asset prices with bounded rationality and adaptive behaviour. The model features feedback loop that amplifies shocks and leads to large price fluctuations. Our model not only retains the nonlinear interaction between prices and population in HAMs but also allows for a quantitative comparison with the data. Estimating the model to the data shows that the feedback loop helps explain the large variations in expected returns, such as return predictability and excess volatility.