Publications

How do monetary policy rules, monetary policy uncertainty, and macroeconomic shocks affect the risk properties of US Treasury bonds? The exposure of US Treasury bonds to the stock market has moved considerably over time. While it was slightly positive on average... View Details

Article

Beyond Statistics: The Economic Content of Risk Scores

By: Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender and Paul Schrimpf

"Big data" and statistical techniques to score potential transactions have transformed insurance and credit markets. In this paper, we observe that these widely-used statistical scores summarize a much richer heterogeneity, and may be endogenous to the context in which... View Details

Keywords: Analytics and Data Science; Risk and Uncertainty; Insurance Industry

Read Now

The risk profiles of many real estate markets are rapidly increasing globally. Insurers and mortgage brokers are taking note and adjusting their offering based on widely available climate data and predictive analytics. John Macomber suggests that consumers and... View Details

29 Nov 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Fiscal Risk and the Portfolio of Government Programs

Keywords: by Samuel G. Hanson, David S. Scharfstein, and Adi Sunderam

2013
Working Paper

The Appeal of the Appropriate: Accounting, Risk Management, and the Competition for the Supply of Control Systems

By: Anette Mikes

How do certain risk measurements in organizations come to be seen as more reliable and acceptable than others? Taking a multiple-control perspective, I investigate the aftermath of a control debacle at a financial services company (MultiBank), focusing on its insurance... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Multiple Control Systems; Interactive Control Systems; Performance Measurement; Risk Measurement; Financialization Of Accounting; Institutional Logics; Banking; Risk Management; Fair Value Accounting; Insurance; Financial Services Industry

Read Now

October 2021
Article

Shareholder Activism and Firms' Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Risks

By: Caroline Flammer, Michael W. Toffel and Kala Viswanathan

This paper examines whether—in the absence of mandated disclosure requirements—shareholder activism can elicit greater disclosure of firms’ exposure to climate change risks. We find that environmental shareholder activism increases the voluntary disclosure of climate... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Reporting; Shareholder Engagement; Shareholder Activism; Climate Change; Risk and Uncertainty; Environmental Management; Investment Activism; Corporate Disclosure; Communication Strategy; Information Publishing; Measurement and Metrics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Problems and Challenges; United States

April 2025
Article

How Central Banks Manage Climate and Energy Transition Risks

By: Esther Shears, Jonas Meckling and Jared Finnegan

Central banks have begun to examine and manage climate risks, including both transition risks of moving from fossil fuels to clean energy and physical climate risks. Here we provide a systematic assessment of how and why central banks address climate risks on the basis... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Risk and Uncertainty; Climate Change; Transition; Risk Management

December 2007
Case

The Campaign for Bank Insurance in Antebellum New York

By: David A. Moss and Cole Bolton

The New York State Legislature had come to a standstill in 1829 as lawmakers refused to charter any new banks or recharter any existing banks. Four of New York's forty banks had failed since 1825, and many legislatures believed that a significant change in the banking... View Details

Keywords: History; Risk Management; Government Legislation; Insurance; Decision Choices and Conditions; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry

Educators

Most people don’t have a strategy for for how to handle the worsening perils of flooding, wildfires and extreme heat. They should adopt a four step process for protecting their property, whether it be a home or a business. First, they should prioritize how... View Details

31 Jan 2023
Op-Ed

Can Insurance Technology Solve the Uninsured Driver Problem?

Despite mandates requiring motorists to carry car insurance, 13 percent of US drivers operate vehicles without any coverage—a problem that exposes uninsured drivers to catastrophic financial risks and leads to higher premiums for View Details

Keywords: by Ray Kluender; Insurance

April 2022
Article

AI Insurance: How Liability Insurance Can Drive the Responsible Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care

By: Ariel Dora Stern, Avi Goldfarb, Timo Minssen and W. Nicholson Price II

Despite enthusiasm about the potential to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to medicine and health care delivery, adoption remains tepid, even for the most compelling technologies. In this article, the authors focus on one set of challenges to AI adoption: those... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Medicine; Health Care and Treatment; Legal Liability; Insurance; Technology Adoption; AI and Machine Learning

Register to Read

February 1994 (Revised February 1996)
Case

Union Carbide Corporation: Interest Rate Risk Management

By: Peter Tufano

Union Carbide's board of directors is asked to evaluate a proposal from the staff treasurer's that would articulate policies to manage its debt portfolio. The staff proposes that shareholder value will be maximized if the firm manages its exposure to interest rates by... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Interest Rates; Corporate Finance; Chemical Industry

Educators

2013
Case

Travelers Insurance: Focusing on Climate Change and Natural Catastrophe Risk

By: Andrew J. Hoffman

The dilemma Evan Blue faces stems from a report by sustainability advocacy group Ceres that calls on companies to take climate change into consideration in their risk models and develop response strategies. The fictional vice president of Traveler's Insurance is tasked... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Business Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Insurance Industry

Fourth Quarter 2007
Article

Contingent Claims Approach to Measuring and Managing Sovereign Credit Risk

By: Dale . F. Gray, Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie

This paper proposes a new approach to measure, analyze, and manage sovereign risk based on the theory and practice of modern contingent claims analysis (CCA). The paper provides a new framework for adapting the CCA model to the sovereign balance sheet in a way that can... View Details

Keywords: Credit; Investment; Sovereign Finance; Risk Management; Emerging Markets; Market Transactions; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

March 2008
Teaching Note

2006 Hurricane Risk (TN)

By: André Perold and Erik Stafford

Teaching Note for [207075]. View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Loss; Investment; Insurance; Natural Disasters; California

October 2008
Article

Risk Frameworks and Biomonitoring: Distributed Regulation of Synthetic Chemicals in Humans

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

The ability to detect and measure the presence of synthetic chemicals at trace levels in humans coupled to increased environmental NGO mobilization concerning chemical exposure has challenged risk and regulatory frameworks built up over the past quarter-century. This... View Details

Keywords: Chemicals; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk Management; Natural Environment; Pollutants; Non-Governmental Organizations; United States

15 May 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India

Keywords: by Shawn Cole, Xavier Giné, Jeremy Tobacman, Petia Topalova, Robert Townsend & James Vickery

Article

Marketing Complex Financial Products in Emerging Markets: Evidence from Rainfall Insurance in India

By: Sarthak Gaurav, Shawn A. Cole and Jeremy Tobacman

Recent financial liberalization in emerging economies has led to the rapid introduction of new financial products. Lack of experience with financial products, low levels of education, and low financial literacy may slow adoption of these products. This article reports... View Details

Keywords: Literacy; Insurance; Marketing; Decisions; Demand and Consumers; Financial Instruments; Emerging Markets; Education; Personal Finance; Agribusiness; Developing Countries and Economies; Innovation and Invention; Gujarat