A large body of literature studies the issues of the option price and other ex-ante welfare measures under the microeconomic theory to valuate reductions of risks inherent in environment and human health. However, it does not offer a careful discussion of how to estimate risk reduction values using data, especially the modeling and estimating individual perceptions of risks present in the econometric models. The central theme of my dissertation is the approaches taken for the empirical estimation of probabilistic risks under alternative assumptions about individual perceptions of risk involved: the objective probability, the Savage subjective probability, and the subjective distributions of probability. Each of these three types of risk specifications is covered in one of the three essays. The first essay addresses the problem of empirical estimation of individual willingness to pay for recreation access to public land under uncertainty. In this essay I developed an econometric model and applied it to the case of lottery-rationed hunting permits. The empirical result finds that the model correctly predicts the responses of 84% of the respondents in the Maine moose hunting survey. The second essay addresses the estimation of a logit model for individual binary choices that involve heterogeneity in subjective probabilities. For this problem, I introduce the use of the hierarchical Bayes to estimate, among others, the parameters of distribution of subjective probabilities. The Monte Carlo study finds the estimator asymptotically unbiased and efficient. The third essay addresses the problem of modeling perceived mortality risks from arsenic concentrations in drinking water. I estimated a formal model that allows for ambiguity about risk. The empirical findings revealed that perceived risk was positively associated with exposure levels and also related individuating factors, in particular smoking habits and one’s current health status. Further evidence was found that the variance of the perceived risk distribution is non-zero. In all, the three essays contribute methodological approaches and provide empirical examples for developing empirical models and estimating value of risk reductions in environment and human health, given the assumption about the individual’s perceptions of risk, and accordingly, the reasonable specifications of risks involved in the models.

In this study, a risk management methodology for the business development phase of a Turkish defense industry firm&rsquo / s projects is proposed. The proposed method is based on the contemporary risk management practices and offers the integration of risk management process on top of existing project management processes in the business development phase, besides being cost effective and applicable. The method suggests a format for a risk management plan with two new sections, results, and compliancy. Furthermore, the method suggests the development of risk response plans prior to the implementation of quantitative risk analysis contrary to the applications in the literature, in order to reduce the size and the complexity of data to be analyzed. The method proposed also benefits from software tools that are easy to use and compatible with the existing project management practices executed in the firm. The method also aims to lead the construction of necessary risk databases that are specific to projects of the firm. The method also discusses the risk management framework under the scope of organizational aspects and decisions. Furthermore, a sample project of the firm is evaluated both with the current method and with the proposed method in order to put forward the advantages of the proposed system over the existing risk management practices of the firm.

This thesis is focused on the methods and tools which are helpful in decision-making under uncertainty and risk. The methods of decision-making for discrete and continuous values of risk factors are used in the thesis. In case of discrete values of risk factors and decision-making under risk, the thesis uses the rule of expected values, the rule of expected value and variance and also calculates the value of perfect information. In case of decision-making under uncertainty, the thesis is focused on the rule of maximin and maximax, Laplace's rule, Hurwitz's rule and Savage's rule. The following part of the thesis is devoted to decision-making with continuous values of risk factors. It utilizes the Monte Carlo simulation method and the sensitivity analysis with the help of Lumina Analytica software. The last part of the thesis is aimed at utilization of decision trees in case of multistage decision-making. It uses the Treeplan software which works as a plugin in MS office Excel. All the mentioned methods are practically applied to a concrete case of analysing and ex post evaluating the business plans of a company, which is based at Jindřichův Hradec market.

Detta är en kvalitativ studie som grundas i ett socialkonstruktivistiskt synsätt. Syftet med denna studie är att analysera hur arbetssätt har förändrats och hur medarbetare inom banksektorn ser på digitaliseringens påverkan på kundernas förtroende samt hur risk och osäkerhet spelar in som en faktor i detta. Vi undersökte hur medarbetare på Nordea ser på digitaliseringen och dess påverkan på arbetssätt och gentemot kunderna. Tidigare forskning har fokuserat på en direkt koppling mellan bank och kundförtroende, men vi valde att rikta studien mot medarbetarna och deras syn på det. Insamlad data från medarbetarna har visat att digitaliseringen till stor del är ett effektivt hjälpmedel både för medarbetare och kund. Brister kommer alltid att finnas i tjänster, men med hjälp av intern och extern feedback kan det åtgärdas snabbt och effektivt, men kan medföra en viss osäkerhet till en början. Risk och osäkerhet är effekter av digitaliseringen och har betydelse för ökningen och minskningen av förtroende. Den här studien kan förhoppningsvis fungera som underlag för fortsatt forskninginom digitaliseringens påverkan på banksektorn. / This is a qualitative study that has its foundation in a social constructionist view. The purpose of this study is to analyze how work procedures have changed and how employees observe and perceive the influence of digitalization on customers’ trust and how risk and uncertainty play a role in it as a factor. We studied how employees at Nordea observe and perceive digitalization and its influence on work procedures and the effect on customers. Prior research has focused more on a direct affiliation between banks and customer trust, but we chose to focus our study on the employees at Nordea and their opinion of it. The gathered data from the employees at the bank has shown that digitalization to a great extent is an effective tool for both employees and customers. Flaws in services are always going to occur, but with the help of feedback from internal and external sources these flaws can be fixed quickly and effectively, but may at the same time cause uncertainty, especially at the beginning of a change. Risk and uncertainty are effects of digitalization and therefore have a significant meaning for the rise and fall of trust. This study can hopefully work as a foundation for future research regarding a similar topic.

[pt] Risco fiscal afeta a curva de juros no contexto de economias emergentes? Como medir adequadamente esse tipo de risco? Explorando o caso do Brasil, estimamos uma medida alternativa de risco fiscal com base em notícias, utilizando processamento de linguagem de texto. Encontramos que aumento em risco fiscal gera aumento em taxas de juros longas, no prêmio a termo e depreciação na taxa de câmbio. Os efeitos são robustos a uma série de especificações alternativas do índice de risco fiscal, sugerindo que se trata de um fenômeno relevante no cenário brasileiro. / [en] Does fiscal policy risk affect the yield curve in an emerging economy? How can we adequately measure this kind of uncertainty? Exploiting the case of Brazil, we estimate a novel, news-based measure of fiscal policy risk using natural language processing. We show that increases in fiscal policy risk are associated to increases in the levels of long maturities in the yield curve, in the term spread and to a depreciation of the exchange rate. The effects are robust to a series of alternative specifications of the text-based index, suggesting that fiscal risk is a relevant phenomenon in the Brazilian setting.

Real estate investments are more frequently crossing borders. The national cultural differences, which are influencing investment preferences and decision processes, are challenging Real Estate Companies, whereas not only capital, but also individuals are moving more frequently across country borders. Real Estate Companies’ risk profile concerning uncertainty avoidance, regarding real  estate investments haven’t  been studied before, thus a gap in the literature is identified. This study aims to identify risks, risk management tools, uncertainty avoidance in Real Estate Companies with different national cultural background, helping to develop a deeper understanding of the differences in their risk profiles. I have found that the Israeli respondents are highly uncertainty avoiding and risk loving, but only regarding familiar risks, while concerning unfamiliar risks, they are rather risk averse. The Swedish respondents are weakly uncertainty avoiding and risk neutral, no matter known or unknown ris

This master's thesis focuses on the knowledge of risk management. The core of this issue contains risk management process, risk identification, monitoring and risk analysis. The text in the first part explains stages of identifying the risks and the methodology used. The aim was to create, after a thorough analysis, the detailed design, then proceed to implementing individual parts of the system and to create a functional system for the support of identification of risks in IT projects. The system was implemented in PHP programming language, working with the MySQL database system on the database level. In the end there is an assessment and discussion of possible expansion.

In this thesis, I study the performance behaviour of hedge funds and mutual funds. I study a basket of various risk statistics that are widely used to measure the fluctuation of asset prices. Those risk statistics are used to rank the performance of the assets. The linear dependence relation of these risk measures in ranking assets is investigated and the set of risk measures is reduced by excluding risk measures that produce linearly dependent ranking vectors to other risk measures. The ranks within each of the selected remaining risk statistics are standardised and then linearly transformed into a new set of linearly independent factors where principal component analysis is carried out as a variable reduction technique to remove the noise while preserve the main variation of the original data. The transformed factors are sorted in descending order according to their contribution to the variation of the original data. The factor loadings of the first two principal components PC1 and PC2 are reviewed and interpreted as styles (PC1 as consistency and PC2 as aggression). The universe of a set of hedge funds is classified according to these styles as BL=(low consistency, low aggression), BR=(high consistency, low aggression), TL=(low consistency, high aggression) and TR=(high consistency, high aggression). I examine the performance behaviour of the four different classified classes whereby this classification method provides an indication on returns and management styles of hedge funds. A three-factor prediction model for asset returns is introduced by regressing 12 weeks' forward rank of return on the historical ranks of risk statistics. The first few principal components, which explain the main variation of information captured by risk statistics, are used in the prediction model. The robustness of the model is tested by applying the model to the following 12-week period using the set of independent factors. An investment strategy is constructed based on the prediction model using the set of independent factors. I discover high evidence of predictability and I test for out-of-sample forecasting performance. I then examine the use of subsets of risk statistics from the basket rather than using the set of all risk statistics. I further study the use of the so-called σ2/μ risk measure in predicting the market “turning point” of performance of a portfolio of hedge funds. Risk measure quantity σ2/μ replaces the traditional variance σ2 in the Black-Scholes option valuation formula when it is evaluated for hedge funds.

Dynamic complexity occurs in every social structure. Film industry, as a type of creative industries, constitutes a dynamic environment where uncertainty is at high levels. This complexity of the environment renders the more traditional operations research models somewhat ineffective, and thus, requires a dynamic analysis. In this study, a model showing the dynamics of film exhibition is given. The interactions within and between the theatrical and the DVD sales channels are implemented by the model. Later on, the possible effects of piracy to the model are discussed, using the inferences obtained by the created model. The model is examined with scenario and sensitivity analysis. All the modeling studies are done with a commercial dynamic systems modeling software. The model also can be extended for the whole film industry, or for some other creative industries like the publishing industry.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera hur de specifika variablerna samverkar i investeringsanalysen bakom strategiska investeringar vid beslutsfattandet. Studien är inriktad mot den dominerande företagssektorn små och medelstora företag, vidare görs en jämförelse mellan yngre och mognare företag. För att analysera detta har en kvantitativ datainsamlingsmetod använts i form av en enkätundersökning. Forskningsfilosofin som är applicerad är deduktiv, för att på så sätt kunna dra generaliseringar i slutsatserna utifrån den empiriska analysen och fullfölja studiens syfte. Studien är baserad utifrån beslutsteori där hantering av risk och osäkerhet har en central roll. Inom området för beslutsfaktorer tillämpas även den situationsanpassade teorin. Intressentteorin och den neoklassiska ekonomiska teorin har även använts som bas.Resultatet uppvisar att det finns ett flertal samband mellan de specifika variablerna, SME-företagens livscykelstadier och investeringsanalysen. Vidare har markanta skillnader identifierats vid investeringsanalysen mellan de yngre och mognare företagen. I analysen illustreras detta med hjälp av statistiska analystabeller.Denna studie skiljer sig från tidigare forskning i ett flertal aspekter. Studien har identifierat ett gap mellan de praktiska tillämpningarna och teorin. Dessutom har studien ett extra brett omfång gentemot tidigare forskning. För att utöver detta även skapa en djupare insikt över företagets attityder och tillämpning av diverse metoder har undersökningen även jämfört yngre och mognare företags förhållningsätt i investeringsanalysen. Denna uppsats kan vara av värde för landets välfärd genom att öka förståelsen för SME-företagens förhållande i samband med strategiska investeringar. / The purpose of this paper is to analyse how specific variables interact the investment analysis behind the investments, in the decision-making process. This study is focused on small and medium sized enterprises where a comparison will be made between young and mature enterprises. To examine this, a quantitative data collection method has been adopted, with the use of a questionnaire survey. A deductive research philosophy has been applied for this study in order to draw general conclusions based on the empirical analysis and fulfil the purpose of this study. This study is based on decision theory where the management of risk and uncertainty play a central role. In the area of decision factors the contingency-theory is also applied. The stakeholder theory and the neoclassical economic theory have also been used as a base.The findings show that there are numerous links between the specific variables, SME business lifecycle stages and the investment analysis. Furthermore, clear differences have been identified in the investment analysis between the young and the more mature enterprises. The analysis is illustrated by means of statistical analysis tables.This research differs from previous studies in several aspects. The study has identified a gap between the practical applications and theory. Moreover, the study has an extra wide range over previous research. To go beyond and create a deeper understanding of the enterprises attitude and application of various methods in their continuous development, the study also compared younger and more mature enterprises approaches to the investment analysis. This paper can be useful for the country's welfare by increasing the understanding of SMEs relationship in the context of strategic investments.