IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/924.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk Analysis in Economics: An Application to University Finances

Author

Abstract

Although the theory of decision making under uncertainty has been extensively studied for a half century, applications to business applications are relatively rare. This study frames a systematic risk analysis and applies the technique to the finances of private colleges and universities. It begins by constructing budgets for colleges and universities and then analyzes the major economic factors affecting those budgets. It estimates the variability (or unpredictability) associated with each major external variable from historical data and from economic forecasts. The study finds that government-spending risks outweigh all other external stock market, interest rates, inflation, and wage trends. The paper concludes by suggesting that institutions consider the implications of exogenous uncertainties other than financial markets on their economic health. It considers the development of general "spending rules" (which would be extensions of conventional "endowment spending rules") to take into account all exogenous uncertainties.

Suggested Citation

  • William D. Nordhaus, 1989. "Risk Analysis in Economics: An Application to University Finances," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 924, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:924
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d09/d0924.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Herbert A. Simon, 1996. "The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262691914, December.
    2. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    3. Arrow, Kenneth J, 1982. "Risk Perception in Psychology and Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(1), pages 1-9, January.
    4. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    5. Sims, Christopher A, 1972. "Money, Income, and Causality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 540-552, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robert C. Merton, 1993. "Optimal Investment Strategies for University Endowment Funds," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Supply and Demand in Higher Education, pages 211-242, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miljkovic, Dragan, 2005. "Rational choice and irrational individuals or simply an irrational theory: A critical review of the hypothesis of perfect rationality," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 621-634, October.
    2. Andrew Caplin & Mark Dean & Daniel Martin, 2011. "Search and Satisficing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2899-2922, December.
    3. David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2012. "Bounded Rationality and Voting Decisions Exploring a 160-Year Period," Working Papers 2012.70, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    4. Grove, Nico & Baumann, Oliver, 2011. "Bitpipe vs. service: Why do pure service providers outperform fully integrated operators?," 8th ITS Asia-Pacific Regional Conference, Taipei 2011: Convergence in the Digital Age 52308, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    5. Moshe Farjoun & Christopher Ansell & Arjen Boin, 2015. "PERSPECTIVE—Pragmatism in Organization Studies: Meeting the Challenges of a Dynamic and Complex World," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1787-1804, December.
    6. Pantelis P. Analytis & Amit Kothiyal & Konstantinos Katsikopoulos, 2014. "Multi-attribute utility models as cognitive search engines," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 9(5), pages 403-419, September.
    7. P. Février & L. Wilner, 2012. "Do Consumers Correctly Expect Price Reductions? Testing Dynamic Behavior," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2012-03, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    8. Feduzi, Alberto & Runde, Jochen, 2014. "Uncovering unknown unknowns: Towards a Baconian approach to management decision-making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 268-283.
    9. Garrett, Vicki & Koontz, Tomas M., 2008. "Breaking the cycle: Producer and consumer perspectives on the non-adoption of passive solar housing in the US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1551-1566, April.
    10. Carlson, Kurt A. & Guha, Abhijit, 2011. "Leader-focused search: The impact of an emerging preference on information search," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 133-141, May.
    11. repec:cup:judgdm:v:9:y:2014:i:5:p:403-419 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Oliver Baumann & Nicolaj Siggelkow, 2013. "Dealing with Complexity: Integrated vs. Chunky Search Processes," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 116-132, February.
    13. Brad R. Taylor, 2016. "Exit and the Epistemic Quality of Voice," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 133-144, June.
    14. Jan Hausfeld & Sven Resnjanskij, 2017. "Risky Decisions and the Opportunity Costs of Time," TWI Research Paper Series 108, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    15. Emily Chamlee-Wright & Justus Myers, 2008. "Discovery and social learning in non-priced environments: An Austrian view of social network theory," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 21(2), pages 151-166, September.
    16. Younge, Kenneth A. & Tong, Tony W., 2018. "Competitive pressure on the rate and scope of innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 162-181.
    17. Julie Ricard, 2022. "Accroissement de la complexité des décisions dans un contexte de prolifération des règles," Post-Print hal-03633895, HAL.
    18. Nawrocki, David N., 1995. "Expectations, technological change, information and the theory of financial markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 4(2-3), pages 85-105.
    19. Bleile, Jörg, 2016. "Limited Attention in Case-Based Belief Formation," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 518, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    20. Nagler Matthew G., 2007. "Understanding the Internet's Relevance to Media Ownership Policy: A Model of Too Many Choices," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, June.
    21. Melvin F. Shakun, 2001. "Unbounded Rationality," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 97-118, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:924. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.