The relationship between risk experience and risk response: a study of farmers and climate change

Within the existing literature, the role of experience of risk on attitudinal and behavioural risk response has been relatively neglected. Recent research that draws on the psychological distance of climate change as a concept notes the importance of local, significant experience as a driver for encouraging appropriate response. The experience of flooding was used as the stimulus in this paper, and emphasis placed on whether direct and/or indirect experience of flood risk is associated with different responses to climate change risk. In order to explore the relationship between climate change risk experience and response in the form of on-farm mitigation and adaptation, this paper draws on a case study of farmers in England, many of whom have experienced flooding. Results from a quantitative survey undertaken with 200 farmers in Gloucestershire, England are discussed. Statistical analysis found experience of flooding to be significantly associated with a heightened concern for climate change. Although also finding an association between experience and behavioural response, the sample were most likely to be taking adaptive behaviour as part of normal practice, with factors such as lack of overall concern for climate change risk and absence of information and advice likely to be the main barriers to action. Risk communication needs to further emphasise the connection between climate change and extreme weather events to allow for farmers to perceive climate change as a relevant and locally salient phenomenon, and subsequent tailored information and advice should be offered to clearly illustrate the best means of on-farm response. Where possible, emphasis must be placed on actions that also enable adaptation to other, more immediate risks which farmers in this study more readily exhibited concern for, such as market volatility.     

Incorporating sustainability criteria into credit risk management

Does a commercial debtor's economic, environmental and social performance in terms of sustainability affect its credit risk rating? Does adding criteria aimed at assessing a lender's environmental, social or sustainability practices provide added value to traditional financial rating criteria? Many analyses have reported that a correlation exists between companies' environmental and their financial performance. We checked out the assertion that it ‘pays to be sustainable’ by analyzing the role that criteria pertaining to sustainability and environmental orientation play in the commercial credit risk management process. Our results show that sustainability criteria can be used to predict the financial performance of a debtor and improve the predictive validity of the credit rating process. We conclude that the sustainability a firm demonstrates influences its creditworthiness as part of its financial performance. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The Quantitative Analysis on Leverage and its Effects

Leverage of modem enterprise＇s financial management includes operating leverage and financial leverage. Both of them exist objectively, are not changeable with human＇s minds. They enlarge enterprise＇s benefit and risk, so they have both positive and negative effects. The degrees of them are measured as DOL and DFL. In financial management, the relationship between DOL and operating risk has regularity in quantity, and so does the relationship between DFL and financial risk.     

企业兼并风险及对策研究

企业兼并是经济发展的必然趋势。在西方国家市场经济发展的过程中,先后爆发了四次大规模的企业兼并浪潮,对这些国家的经济发展产生了深远的影响。随着我国社会主义市场经济体制的建立和发展,这种产权交易活动也为众多的企业所关注和采用。但是目前企业兼并中还存在着财务、经营、审计、文化等风险。需要我们采取相应的对策加以解决。     

复杂金融产品评数字化绩效评估

本文在分析范式上将复杂金融产品看成是关于其标的资产的或有要求权,复杂金融产品结构上本质差异在于其支付过程和边界条件。设计和构建一个统一分析框架,从风险和收益两个方面对复杂金融产品进行绩效评估,在方法和过程上采用数字模拟仿真技术实现。利用2007年度在国内市场公开发行的银行理财产品作为实证分析实例,评估结果表明国内市场理财产品基本符合风险收益平衡原则,但在产品发展和创新能力上,外资机构比中资银行具有优势。     

Income risk and farm consumption behavior

Using panel data from Illinois grain farmers, a direct test of the relationship between income risk and farm consumption behavior is conducted. The estimation results indicate that income risk significantly affects farm consumption and the results are robust using alternative risk measures. This finding casts doubt on the relevance of the conventional life-cycle permanent income hypothesis, which implies that risk has no effect on consumption.     

The effects of real exchange rate depreciation on stochastic producer prices in low-income agriculture

This paper considers the effects of real exchange rate depreciation on stochastic agricultural producer prices in low-income agriculture. Conventional wisdom, that real depreciation achieved through nominal currency devaluation stimulates tradables production, does not universally hold in the presence of stochastic prices. In fact, real depreciation is only stimulative in two cases–importables that remain importable and nontradables that become exportable. GARCH estimation of time-series price data on several commodities from Madagascar support the hypotheses generated by the analytical model.