IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpri/0409001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk Management – Managing Risks, not Calculating Them

Author

Listed:
  • Philip Kostov

    (Queen's University Belfast)

  • John Lingard

    (University of Newcastle)

Abstract

The expected utility approach to decision making advocates a probability vision of the world and labels any deviation from it ‘irrational’. This paper reconsiders the rationality argument and argues that calculating risks is not a viable strategy in an uncertain world. Alternative strategies not only can save considerable cognitive and computational resources, but are more ‘rational’ with view to the restricted definition of rationality applied by expected utility theorists. The alternative decision making model of risk management is presented and explained.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip Kostov & John Lingard, 2004. "Risk Management – Managing Risks, not Calculating Them," Risk and Insurance 0409001, EconWPA.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpri:0409001
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econwpa.repec.org/eps/ri/papers/0409/0409001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kunreuther, Howard & Novemsky, Nathan & Kahneman, Daniel, 2001. "Making Low Probabilities Useful," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 103-120, September.
    2. Akerlof, George A & Dickens, William T, 1982. "The Economic Consequences of Cognitive Dissonance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 307-319, June.
    3. Manski, Charles F, 1999. "Analysis of Choice Expectations in Incomplete Scenarios," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 49-66, December.
    4. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    5. Tversky, Amos & Slovic, Paul & Kahneman, Daniel, 1990. "The Causes of Preference Reversal," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 204-217, March.
    6. Machina, Mark J, 1982. ""Expected Utility" Analysis without the Independence Axiom," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 277-323, March.
    7. Philip Kostov & John Lingard, 2004. "Rural Development as Risk Management," Others 0409013, EconWPA.
    8. Kahneman, Daniel & Tversky, Amos, 1979. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(2), pages 263-291, March.
    9. McFadden, Daniel, 1999. "Rationality for Economists?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 73-105, December.
    10. Peltzman, Sam, 1975. "The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(4), pages 677-725, August.
    11. Philip Kostov & John Lingard, 2004. "Integrated rural development - do we need a new approach?," Others 0409006, EconWPA.
    12. Viscusi, W Kip, 1985. "Consumer Behavior and the Safety Effects of Product Safety Regulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 527-553, October.
    13. Read, Daniel & Loewenstein, George & Rabin, Matthew, 1999. "Choice Bracketing," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 171-197, December.
    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. Petrics, Hajnalka & Feher, Alajos, 2009. "The multifunctionality of agriculture and risk management as seen by Hungarian farmers involved in diversified farming," Studies in Agricultural Economics, Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, issue 109, April.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wpa:wuwpri:0409001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (EconWPA). General contact details of provider: http://econwpa.repec.org .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.