Behavioral Risk Management Managing the Psychology That Drives Decisions and Influences Operational Risk

by Shefrin, Hersh

• ISBN13: 9781137445605
• ISBN10: 1137445602
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-12-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The psychological dimension of managing risk is of crucial importance, and its study has led to the identification of specific do's and don'ts. Those with an understanding of the psychology underlying risk and the skills to recognize its manifestation in practice, have the opportunity to develop frameworks that embody the do's and don'ts, thereby producing sound judgments and good decisions. Those lacking the understanding and the skills are destined to be more hit and miss in their approach to risk management, doing the don'ts and not doing the do's. Virtually every major risk management catastrophe in the last fifteen years has psychological pitfalls at its root. The list of catastrophes includes the 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and subsequent global financial crisis, the 2010 explosion at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2011 nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

A critical lesson from psychological studies for those involved in risk management is that people's judgments and decisions about risk vary with type of circumstance. In Behavioral Risk Management readers will learn that there are specific actions that organizations can undertake to incorporate understanding, recognition, and behavioral interventions into the practice of risk management. There are many examples throughout the book that illustrate doing the don'ts. The chapters in the first part of the book introduce the main ideas, and the chapters in the latter part provide insight into how to apply those ideas to the practical world in which risk managers operate.

Author Biography

Hersh Shefrin is the Mario L. Belotti Professor of Finance at Santa Clara University, USA. He is one of the pioneers in the behavioral approach to economics and finance. The January 2001 issue of CFO magazine lists him among the academic stars of finance. A 2003 article in the American Economic Review listed him as one of the top fifteen economic theorists to have influenced empirical work. In 2009, his behavioral finance book Beyond Greed and Fear was recognized by JP Morgan Chase as one of the top ten books published since 2000. Among Shefrin's other books are A Behavioral Approach to Asset Pricing, Behavioral Corporate Finance, Ending the Management Illusion, and Behavioralizing Finance. His work with Meir Statman received the William Sharpe Award Best Paper Award for the article "Behavioral Portfolio Theory", published in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and a Graham and Dodd scroll from the Association of Investment Management Research. He is currently teaching a full-length professional development course for executives in behavioral risk management at NYU and the Amsterdam Institute of Finance.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Introduction
2. Three Key Emotions
3. Prospect Theory: Three Cognitive Issues
4. Personality and Risk
5. Biases and Risk
6. Process, Pitfalls, and Culture
7. Minsky, the Financial Instability Hypothesis, and Risk Management
8. Psychology and Ponzi Finance at UBS and Merrill Lynch
9. Moody's and S&P
10. Fannie, Freddie, and AIG
11. RBS, Fortis, and ABN AMRO
12. Behavioral Dimension of Systemic Risk
13. Financial Regulation and Psychology
14. Risk of Fraud, Madoff, and the SEC
15. Risk, Return, and Individual Stocks
16. How Psychology Brought Down MF Global
17. JP Morgan's Whale of a Risk Management Failure
18. Con Ed, BP and MMS
19. Southwest Airlines, General Motors, and the Agencies that Regulate Them
20. Conclusion
Appendices