The benefits of modern technology often involve health, safety and environmental risks that produce public suspicion of technologies and aversion to certain products and substances. Amplified by the pervasive power of the media, public concern about health and ecological risks can have enormous economic and social impacts, such as the 'stigmatization' experienced in recent years with nuclear power, British beef and genetically modified plants. This volume presents the most current and comprehensive examination of how and why stigma occurs and what the appropriate responses to it should be to inform the public and reduce undesirable impacts. Each form of stigma is thoroughly explored through a range of case studies. Theoretical contributions look at the roles played by government and business, and the crucial impact of the media in forming public attitudes. Stigma is not always misplaced, and the authors discuss the challenges involved in managing risk and reducing the vulnerability of important products, industries and institutions while providing the public with the relevant information they need about risks.

In this two-volume set the editors have brought together some of the most significant previously published papers by leading academics in this field. The Economics of Natural Hazards investigates the impact of natural disasters on national and regional economies. Volume I considers the effects both of the perception of risk and of direct losses and explores the costs of reducing the impact of disasters by, for example, forecasting, self-protection and the building of physical structures. Volume II deals with mitigating the costs of disaster through insurance, including financial coverage for catastrophic loss, and investigates the development of private-public partnerships for managing disasters and the problems of reconstruction and recovery. A final section addresses the particular problems of disasters in developing countries.

Asian nations increasingly have to balance energy needs with environmental impacts and economic growth. These critical issues for the development of Asian nations and the quality of life of their citizens are extensively addressed in this major new volume which focuses on research and policy perspectives.A distinguished group of researchers from Asia, Europe and North America, focuses on Asian initiatives on global and regional environmental problems, the impact of energy and environment on development and international trade in Asia, the problems associated with siting major energy facilities, the Asian green movement and public reaction to environmental degradation, and the role of communities in achieving a balance between energy, environment and economics. Researchers and policymakers, public policy and management researchers and environmentalists will welcome this important book which addresses the key issue of balancing the conflicting objectives of energy planning, environmental management and economic development.

When Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, it directed the Department of Energy to locate, study, license, and develop a deep underground repository for high-level nuclear wastes. As the authors of this study show, by 1987 the program was in shambles, beset by opposition from every state that had a potential storage site. Congress p

Time is both the ally of high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) managers and the enemy. It is the ally because the radioactivity in elements and isotopes decreases with age, making the waste progressively less dangerous to human health and safety and the environment. This rate of radioactive decline varies, in some cases diminishing by half (the half life) in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years. In other cases the decay process takes centuries or hundreds of thousands of years before the wastes are safe for human contact. The problem as now conceptualized for HLNW managers is simple to state if not easy to achieve. The HLNW needs to be secured in some fashion until it decays, by virtue of its physical nature, to safe levels. Another possible future solution, not currently available, might be to change the ~~ructure of HLNW through high-technology processing and thus decompose the waste into units with different and less lengthy radioactivity. Learning whether this processing is a future option will require patience and generous amounts of time for research.

The benefits of modern technology often involve health, safety and environmental risks that produce public suspicion of technologies and aversion to certain products and substances. Amplified by the pervasive power of the media, public concern about health and ecological risks can have enormous economic and social impacts, such as the 'stigmatization' experienced in recent years with nuclear power, British beef and genetically modified plants. This volume presents the most current and comprehensive examination of how and why stigma occurs and what the appropriate responses to it should be to inform the public and reduce undesirable impacts. Each form of stigma is thoroughly explored through a range of case studies. Theoretical contributions look at the roles played by government and business, and the crucial impact of the media in forming public attitudes. Stigma is not always misplaced, and the authors discuss the challenges involved in managing risk and reducing the vulnerability of important products, industries and institutions while providing the public with the relevant information they need about risks.

Whether man-made or naturally occurring, large-scale disasters can cause fatalities and injuries, devastate property and communities, savage the environment, impose significant financial burdens on individuals and firms, and test political leadership. Moreover, global challenges such as climate change and terrorism reveal the interdependent and interconnected nature of our current moment: what occurs in one nation or geographical region is likely to have effects across the globe. Our information age creates new and more integrated forms of communication that incur risks that are difficult to evaluate, let alone anticipate. All of this makes clear that innovative approaches to assessing and managing risk are urgently required. When catastrophic risk management was in its inception thirty years ago, scientists and engineers would provide estimates of the probability of specific types of accidents and their potential consequences. Economists would then propose risk management policies based on those experts' estimates with little thought as to how this data would be used by interested parties. Today, however, the disciplines of finance, geography, history, insurance, marketing, political science, sociology, and the decision sciences combine scientific knowledge on risk assessment with a better appreciation for the importance of improving individual and collective decision-making processes. The essays in this volume highlight past research, recent discoveries, and open questions written by leading thinkers in risk management and behavioral sciences. The Future of Risk Management provides scholars, businesses, civil servants, and the concerned public tools for making more informed decisions and developing long-term strategies for reducing future losses from potentially catastrophic events. Contributors: Mona Ahmadiani, Joshua D. Baker, W. J. Wouter Botzen, Cary Coglianese, Gregory Colson, Jeffrey Czajkowski, Nate Dieckmann, Robin Dillon, Baruch Fischhoff, Jeffrey A. Friedman, Robin Gregory, Robert W. Klein, Carolyn Kousky, Howard Kunreuther, Craig E. Landry, Barbara Mellers, Robert J. Meyer, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Robert Muir-Wood, Mark Pauly, Lisa Robinson, Adam Rose, Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Paul Slovic, Phil Tetlock, Daniel Vastfjall, W. Kip Viscusi, Elke U. Weber, Richard Zeckhauser.

Can insurance be used as a means to obtain compliance with environmental policy? Answering this question requires examination of a broad mosaic of academic issues, including current systems available for providing compensation and deterrence, use of contracts (including insurance) as substitutes for tort law, limitations of regulatory policy-making by government agencies, pre-conditions for creation of insurance products, and market mechanisms necessary for insurance to be purchased or sold. The purpose of Managing Environmental Risk Through Insurance is to highlight the potential role that insurance and performance standards can play in managing environmental risk. Insurance can play a significant role in dealing with one of the most problematic issues facing society today - how to compensate for environmental exposures. This book analyzes the ability of insurance to play a role in managing environmental risk. It begins by outlining the role insurance plays in society in contrast to other societal tools for addressing risk: government benefit programs and imposition of involuntary liability using the court system. By so doing, the book describes the comparative advantages of insurance. The book then analyzes the insurability of the risks. Finally, the book applies the insurability analysis to three concrete environmental examples.

Two related trends have created novel challenges for managing risk in the United States. The first trend is a series of dramatic changes in liability law as tort law has expanded to assign liability to defendants for reasons other than negligence. The unpredictability of future costs induced by changes in tort law may be partly responsible for the second major trend known as the liability crisis' - the disappearance of liability protection in markets for particularly unpredictable risks. This book examines decisions people make about insurance and liability. An understanding of such decision making may help explain why the insurance crisis resulted from the new interpretations of tort law and what to do about it. The articles cover three kinds of decisions: consumer decisions to purchase insurance; insurer decisions about coverage they offer; and the decisions of the public about the liability rules they prefer, which are reflected in legislation and regulation. For each of these three kinds of decisions, normative theories such as expected utility theory can be used as benchmarks against which actual decisions are judged.

Based on the research that has been conducted at Wharton Risk Management Center over the past five years on catastrophic risk.

Covers a hot topic in the light of recent terroristic activities and nature catastrophes.

Develops risk management strategies for reducing and spreading the losses from future disasters.

Provides glossary of definitions and terms used throughout the book.

Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk is the first book that systematically analyzes how catastrophe models can be used for assessing and managing risks of extreme events. It focuses on natural disaster risk, but also discusses the management of terrorism risk. A unique feature of this book is the involvement of three leading catastrophe modeling firms, AIR Worldwide, EQECAT, and Risk Management Solutions, who examine the role of catastrophe modeling in rate setting, portfolio management and risk financing.

Using data from three model cities (Oakland, CA, Long Beach, CA and Miami/Dade County, FLA), experts from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania examine the role of catastrophe modeling to develop risk management strategies for reducing and spreading the losses from future disasters. Given the uncertainties associated with terrorism the book points out the opportunities for utilizing catastrophe models to set insurance rates and to examine public-private partnerships for providing financial assistance in the event of a terrorist attack.

"This book fills a critical need in setting forth the role of modern risk analysis in managing catastrophe risk. There is no comparable reference work for this important subject area. The book is well written and well organized. It contains contributions from many of the most distinguished experts in the fields of risk analysis and risk management. It strikes a good balance between the technical aspects of the subject and the practical aspects of decision making."

"This book is strongly recommended for individuals who must make decisions regarding the management of impacts of catastrophe risks including those in both the public and private sector."

Wilfred D. Iwan
Professor of Applied Mechanics, Emeritus
Director, Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory
California Institute of Technology

"The authors have captured the essence of catastrophe modeling: its value, its utility and its limitations. Every practitioner in the catastrophe risk field should read this book."

Franklin W. Nutter, President
Reinsurance Association of America

Can insurance be used as a means to obtain compliance with environmental policy? Answering this question requires examination of a broad mosaic of academic issues, including current systems available for providing compensation and deterrence, use of contracts (including insurance) as substitutes for tort law, limitations of regulatory policy-making by government agencies, pre-conditions for creation of insurance products, and market mechanisms necessary for insurance to be purchased or sold. The purpose of Managing Environmental Risk Through Insurance is to highlight the potential role that insurance and performance standards can play in managing environmental risk. Insurance can play a significant role in dealing with one of the most problematic issues facing society today - how to compensate for environmental exposures. This book analyzes the ability of insurance to play a role in managing environmental risk. It begins by outlining the role insurance plays in society in contrast to other societal tools for addressing risk: government benefit programs and imposition of involuntary liability using the court system. By so doing, the book describes the comparative advantages of insurance. The book then analyzes the insurability of the risks. Finally, the book applies the insurability analysis to three concrete environmental examples.

This book explores the dilemma of siting a high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) repository. The authors examine siting conflicts from a variety of perspectives - political, psychological, and sociological - and identify the fundamental determinants of public opposition to waste disposal facilities as a means of designing more effective approaches to solving the typical siting dilemma. In assessing the causes of public opposition, the book draws on various surveys of attitudes toward the repository as a function of predictors such as perceptions of risk, benefits, and fairness. Exploring the factors that underlie public opposition to a repository enables one to understand why current siting efforts have failed. More importantly, the data are useful in defining what new strategies might be effective in obtaining public consent for a HLNW storage facility. One of the primary conclusions is that the current impasse in the siting of a HLNW repository stems primarily from a lack of national consensus on the need for such a facility. The book also recommends the need for a fair' siting process and the authors strongly favor a voluntary process to solve the siting dilemma. Such a process was initiated in the U.S. by the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act; the process of finding a volunteer site has proven to be difficult, but there are signs that this process can work. Finally, the book focuses on the problems associated with siting a HLNW repository by treating this case as a generic example of the more basic siting dilemma. The analysis of public opposition and the recommendations we make for successful siting can be generalized to almost any attempt to site a noxious facility.

This book explores the dilemma of siting a high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) repository. The authors examine siting conflicts from a variety of perspectives - political, psychological, and sociological - and identify the fundamental determinants of public opposition to waste disposal facilities as a means of designing more effective approaches to solving the typical siting dilemma. In assessing the causes of public opposition, the book draws on various surveys of attitudes toward the repository as a function of predictors such as perceptions of risk, benefits, and fairness. Exploring the factors that underlie public opposition to a repository enables one to understand why current siting efforts have failed. More importantly, the data are useful in defining what new strategies might be effective in obtaining public consent for a HLNW storage facility. One of the primary conclusions is that the current impasse in the siting of a HLNW repository stems primarily from a lack of national consensus on the need for such a facility. The book also recommends the need for a fair' siting process and the authors strongly favor a voluntary process to solve the siting dilemma. Such a process was initiated in the U.S. by the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act; the process of finding a volunteer site has proven to be difficult, but there are signs that this process can work. Finally, the book focuses on the problems associated with siting a HLNW repository by treating this case as a generic example of the more basic siting dilemma. The analysis of public opposition and the recommendations we make for successful siting can be generalized to almost any attempt to site a noxious facility.

Two related trends have created novel challenges for managing risk in the United States. The first trend is a series of dramatic changes in liability law as tort law has expanded to assign liability to defendants for reasons other than negligence. The unpredictability of future costs induced by changes in tort law may be partly responsible for the second major trend known as the liability crisis' - the disappearance of liability protection in markets for particularly unpredictable risks. This book examines decisions people make about insurance and liability. An understanding of such decision making may help explain why the insurance crisis resulted from the new interpretations of tort law and what to do about it. The articles cover three kinds of decisions: consumer decisions to purchase insurance; insurer decisions about coverage they offer; and the decisions of the public about the liability rules they prefer, which are reflected in legislation and regulation. For each of these three kinds of decisions, normative theories such as expected utility theory can be used as benchmarks against which actual decisions are judged.

A challenge facing society today is how to develop a meaningful strategy for integrated hazardous waste management. Meeting this challenge was the principal motivation for the conference on "Risk Assessment and Risk Management Strategies for Hazardous Waste Storage and Disposal Prob lems," held at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania on May 18-19, 1988. The conference brought together representatives from the major interested parties - environmentalists, government, insurance, law, manufacturing, and the university community - who have been con cerned with the waste management process. The conference was the third cosponsored by the Wharton Center for Risk and Decision Processes addressing the knotty problem of hazardous waste. The first, held at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in 1985, examined the transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials. It suggested steps that industry, insurers, and gov ernment agencies could take to improve the safety and efficiency with which hazardous materials are produced and controlled in industrialized societies. Specifically, it focused on the risk-management tools of insurance, com pensation, and regulation. xv xvi PREFACE The second conference, held at the Wharton School, University of Penn sylvania in 1986, concentrated on the role of insurance and compensation in environmental pollution problems. It characterized a set of problems related to the environmental pollution liability insurance crisis as presented by key interested parties and proposed a set of research needs for providing a sound basis for constructing socially appropriate measures to deal with the problem."

"The Ostrich Paradox boldly addresses a key question of our time: Why are we humans so poor at dealing with disastrous risks, and what can we humans do about it? It is a must-read for everyone who cares about risk." -Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow We fail to evacuate when advised. We rebuild in flood zones. We don't wear helmets. We fail to purchase insurance. We would rather avoid the risk of "crying wolf" than sound an alarm. Our ability to foresee and protect against natural catastrophes has never been greater; yet, we consistently fail to heed the warnings and protect ourselves and our communities, with devastating consequences. What explains this contradiction? In The Ostrich Paradox, Wharton professors Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther draw on years of teaching and research to explain why disaster preparedness efforts consistently fall short. Filled with heartbreaking stories of loss and resilience, the book addresses: *How people make decisions when confronted with high-consequence, low-probability events-and how these decisions can go awry *The 6 biases that lead individuals, communities, and institutions to make grave errors that cost lives *The Behavioral Risk Audit, a systematic approach for improving preparedness by recognizing these biases and designing strategies that anticipate them *Why, if we are to be better prepared for disasters, we need to learn to be more like ostriches, not less Fast-reading and critically important, The Ostrich Paradox is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why we consistently underprepare for disasters, as well as private and public leaders, planners, and policy-makers who want to build more prepared communities.

On February 27, 2010, Chile was rocked by a violent earthquake five hundred times more powerful than the one that hit Haiti just six weeks prior. The Chilean earthquake devastated schools, hospitals, roads, and homes, paralyzing the country for weeks and causing economic damage that was equal to 18 percent of Chile's GDP. This calamity hit just as an incumbent political regime was packing its bags and a new administration was preparing to take office. For most countries, it would have taken years, if not decades, to recover from such an event. Yet, only one year later, Chile's economy had reached a six percent annual growth rate. In Leadership Dispatches, Michael Useem, Howard Kunreuther, and Erwann Michel-Kerjan look at how the nation's leaders-in government, business, religion, academia, and beyond-facilitated Chile's recovery. They attribute Chile's remarkable comeback to a two-part formula consisting of strong national leadership on the one hand, and deeply rooted institutional practices on the other. Coupled with strategic, deliberative thinking, these levers enabled Chile to bounce back quickly and exceed its prior national performance. The authors make the case that the Chilean story contains lessons for a broad range of organizations and governments the world over. Large-scale catastrophes of many kinds-from technological meltdowns to disease pandemics-have been on the rise in recent years. Now is the time to seek ideas and guidance from other leaders who have triumphed in the wake of a disaster. In this vein, Leadership Dispatches is both a remarkable story of resilience and an instructive look at how those with the greatest responsibility for a country, company, or community should lead.

Whether man-made or naturally occurring, large-scale disasters can cause fatalities and injuries, devastate property and communities, savage the environment, impose significant financial burdens on individuals and firms, and test political leadership. Moreover, global challenges such as climate change and terrorism reveal the interdependent and interconnected nature of our current moment: what occurs in one nation or geographical region is likely to have effects across the globe. Our information age creates new and more integrated forms of communication that incur risks that are difficult to evaluate, let alone anticipate. All of this makes clear that innovative approaches to assessing and managing risk are urgently required. When catastrophic risk management was in its inception thirty years ago, scientists and engineers would provide estimates of the probability of specific types of accidents and their potential consequences. Economists would then propose risk management policies based on those experts' estimates with little thought as to how this data would be used by interested parties. Today, however, the disciplines of finance, geography, history, insurance, marketing, political science, sociology, and the decision sciences combine scientific knowledge on risk assessment with a better appreciation for the importance of improving individual and collective decision-making processes. The essays in this volume highlight past research, recent discoveries, and open questions written by leading thinkers in risk management and behavioral sciences. The Future of Risk Management provides scholars, businesses, civil servants, and the concerned public tools for making more informed decisions and developing long-term strategies for reducing future losses from potentially catastrophic events. Contributors: Mona Ahmadiani, Joshua D. Baker, W. J. Wouter Botzen, Cary Coglianese, Gregory Colson, Jeffrey Czajkowski, Nate Dieckmann, Robin Dillon, Baruch Fischhoff, Jeffrey A. Friedman, Robin Gregory, Robert W. Klein, Carolyn Kousky, Howard Kunreuther, Craig E. Landry, Barbara Mellers, Robert J. Meyer, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Robert Muir-Wood, Mark Pauly, Lisa Robinson, Adam Rose, Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Paul Slovic, Phil Tetlock, Daniel Vastfjall, W. Kip Viscusi, Elke U. Weber, Richard Zeckhauser.

"The Ostrich Paradox boldly addresses a key question of our time: Why are we humans so poor at dealing with disastrous risks, and what can we humans do about it? It is a must-read for everyone who cares about risk." -Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow We fail to evacuate when advised. We rebuild in flood zones. We don't wear helmets. We fail to purchase insurance. We would rather avoid the risk of "crying wolf" than sound an alarm. Our ability to foresee and protect against natural catastrophes has never been greater; yet, we consistently fail to heed the warnings and protect ourselves and our communities, with devastating consequences. What explains this contradiction? In The Ostrich Paradox, Wharton professors Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther draw on years of teaching and research to explain why disaster preparedness efforts consistently fall short. Filled with heartbreaking stories of loss and resilience, the book addresses: *How people make decisions when confronted with high-consequence, low-probability events-and how these decisions can go awry *The 6 biases that lead individuals, communities, and institutions to make grave errors that cost lives *The Behavioral Risk Audit, a systematic approach for improving preparedness by recognizing these biases and designing strategies that anticipate them *Why, if we are to be better prepared for disasters, we need to learn to be more like ostriches, not less Fast-reading and critically important, The Ostrich Paradox is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why we consistently underprepare for disasters, as well as private and public leaders, planners, and policy-makers who want to build more prepared communities.

Leading experts address questions of public and private roles in assessing, managing, and mitigating major risks to public health and safety in light of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. "This volume provides important insights from the nation's leading experts on how we, as a community and nation, should be rethinking disaster assessment, prevention, and mitigation. Policymakers, legislators, business leaders, and scholars: this is a must-read."--Jon Huntsman, Jr., Governor of Utah "An indispensable resource for all who seek to learn from the unprecedented devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. I commend the authors for recording the valuable lessons learned. Their work will assuredly help our communities be better prepared for the next catastrophe."--James Lee Witt, former Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency "An enormously important volume that comes at just the right time. In the wake of Katrina, new thinking is urgently needed on how to manage catastrophic risk most effectively--especially regarding prevention and recovery. This precious volume offers insights on both fronts, with contributions from many of the nation's leading authorities on risk and disaster. It is a must-read for scholars and policymakers alike."--David A. Moss, Harvard Business School Hurricane Katrina not only devastated a large area of the nation's Gulf coast, it also raised fundamental questions about ways the nation can, and should, deal with the inevitable problems of economic risk and social responsibility. This volume gathers leading experts to examine lessons that Hurricane Katrina teaches us about better assessing, perceiving, and managing risks from future disasters. The 20 contributors to this volume address questions of public and private roles in assessing, managing, and dealing with risk in American society and suggest strategies for moving ahead in rebuilding the Gulf coast. Contributors: Matthew Adler, Vicki Bier, Baruch Fischhoff, Kenneth R. Foster, Robert Giegengack, Peter Gosselin, Scott E. Harrington, Carolyn Kousky, Robert Meyer, Harvey G. Ryland, Brian L. Strom, Kathleen Tierney, Michael J. Trebilcock, Detlof von Winterfeldt, Jonathan Walters, Richard J. Zeckhauser. Ronald J. Daniels is Provost and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published widely, including Rethinking the Welfare State: The Prospects for Government by Voucher (with Michael Trebilcock) and The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill (coedited with Patrick Macklem and Kent Roach). Donald F. Kettl, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, has written or edited "System under Stress: Homeland Security and American Politics," "The Global Public Management Revolution," "The Politics of the Administrative Process" (with James W. Fesler), "The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for the 21st Century," among many other books. Howard Kunreuther is Professor and Codirector of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. His has written or coedited a number of books, including "Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk" (with Patricia Grossi) and "Wharton on Making Decisions" (with Stephen Hoch). Amy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the author of "Why Deliberative Democracy?" (with Dennis Thompson), "Identity in Democracy, Democratic Education, Democracy and Disagreement" (with Dennis Thompson), and "Color Conscious" (with K. Anthony Appiah). Her reviews have appeared in the "New York Times Book Review," "Times Literary Supplement," "Washington Post," and other general publications.

A challenge facing society today is how to develop a meaningful strategy for integrated hazardous waste management. Meeting this challenge was the principal motivation for the conference on "Risk Assessment and Risk Management Strategies for Hazardous Waste Storage and Disposal Prob lems," held at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania on May 18-19, 1988. The conference brought together representatives from the major interested parties - environmentalists, government, insurance, law, manufacturing, and the university community - who have been con cerned with the waste management process. The conference was the third cosponsored by the Wharton Center for Risk and Decision Processes addressing the knotty problem of hazardous waste. The first, held at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in 1985, examined the transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials. It suggested steps that industry, insurers, and gov ernment agencies could take to improve the safety and efficiency with which hazardous materials are produced and controlled in industrialized societies. Specifically, it focused on the risk-management tools of insurance, com pensation, and regulation. xv xvi PREFACE The second conference, held at the Wharton School, University of Penn sylvania in 1986, concentrated on the role of insurance and compensation in environmental pollution problems. It characterized a set of problems related to the environmental pollution liability insurance crisis as presented by key interested parties and proposed a set of research needs for providing a sound basis for constructing socially appropriate measures to deal with the problem."

A profound and insightful look at how company leaders prepare for and respond to shocks and crises that threaten their business. Successful firms strategically manage and are more accurate in their assessment of large-scale risks. Doing so is increasingly challenging given the pace of change, whether financial, technological, regulatory, or environmental. Mastering Catastrophic Risk provides real-world practical insights into how large companies are responding to this new reality and develops a framework for smarter thinking about events that can damage a business. As leading authorities on risk management, strategy, and company leadership, Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem take us on a groundbreaking tour of firms' decision making process. They demonstrate how improving readiness for and resilience against future shocks is now an integral part of company strategy. Using the "DISRUPT" model they have developed, they highlight the seven primary Drivers of disruption: Interdependencies increase exposure; Short-term focus results in limited vision; Regulations require change and constrain opportunities; Urbanization increases the costs of disasters; Probabilities of disasters have increased; and Transparency has enhanced public awareness of problems and impacts on firms' reputations. This updated paperback edition includes a new preface to address threats to business that have emerged or intensified in the past two years including existential threats like the coronavirus, self-inflicted calamities like the Wells Fargo customer account scandal, and natural disasters like the West Coast wildfires and hurricanes on the Atlantic. Some disruptions can be anticipated, while others arrive without warning. Their onset stresses decision makers, impairs company operations, and may even put the enterprise at risk. The bottom-line: business leaders and their governing boards face ever more challenging disruptions and must be ever more on guard. If your company is hit tomorrow, will it bounce back, or drown?

Insurance Decision Making and Market Behavior discusses such behavior with the intent of categorizing these insurance "anomalies". It represents a first step in constructing a theory of insurance decision making to explain behavior that does not conform to standard economic models of choice and decision-making. Finally, the authors propose a set of prescriptive solutions for improving insurance decision-making. Considerable evidence suggests that many people for whom insurance is worth purchasing do not have coverage and others who appear not to need financial protection against certain events actually have purchased coverage. There are certain types of events for which one might expect to see insurance widely marketed are now viewed today by insurers as uninsurable and there are other policies one might not expect to be successfully marketed that exist on a relatively large scale. In addition, evidence suggests that cost-effective preventive measures are sometimes rewarded by insurers in ways that could change their clients' behavior. These examples reveal that insurance purchasing and marketing activities do not always produce results that are in the best interest of individuals at risk. Insurance Decision Making and Market Behavior discusses such behavior with the intent of categorizing these insurance "anomalies". It represents a first step in constructing a theory of insurance decision making to explain behavior that does not conform to standard economic models of choice and decision-making. Finally, the authors propose a set of prescriptive solutions for improving insurance decision-making.

This text focuses on insurance as a tool for addressing risk, as opposed to government benefit programs or involuntary liability using the court system. It examines the public policy and economic nature of insurance, the insurability of risks and applies this to three environmental examples.