Howard Kunreuther Faculty Profile

Howard Kunreuther
Cecilia Yen Koo Professor; Professor of Decision Sciences and Business and Public Policy
Co-Director, Risk Management and Decision Processes Center

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1965; AB, Bates College, 1959

Research Areas
Decision processes; insurance; low-probability events and decision making; managerial economics; operations management; regulation; risk assessment

Recent Consulting
Problems on insurability, with particular emphasis on environmental risk and natural hazards, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), World Economic Forum (WEF), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Current Projects
Current research projects are associated with ways that society can deal more effectively with problems of managing catastrophic risks. Also concerned with how insurance can be utilized to deal with natural hazards and environmental risk more effectively through a better understanding of the concepts of insurability and interdependent security.

Academic Positions Held
Wharton: 1972-present (named Cecilia Yen Koo Professor, 1994; Acting Chairperson, Operations and Information Management Department, 1999-2001; Co-Director, Center for Risk Management and Decision Processes, 1984-present; Meshulam Riklis Professor in the Practice of Creative Management, 1991-94; Acting Director, Center for the Study of Organizational Innovation, Wharton, 1984-85; Chairperson, Decision Sciences Department, 1977-80). Previous appointment: University of Chicago

Other Positions
Program Manager, National Science Foundation, Decision Risk & Management Science Program, 1989-90; Task Leader, International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, 1980-82; Research Adviser, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Ford Foundation-Yale University, 1970-71; Economist, Economics and Political Studies Division, The Institute for Defense Analyses, 1964-66

Career and Recent Professional Awards; Teaching Awards
Presented the Geneva Lecture on "Mitigating Losses and Providing Protection against Catastrophic Risks" June 1996; Elected Fellow for Society for Risk Analysis, 1992; Distinguished Service Award, Society for Risk Analysis, 1990; Graduate Division Excellence in Teaching Award, 1983

Professional Leadership 2005-2009
Associate Editor, Risk Analysis, 1985-present; Associate Editor, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1987-present; Committee on Bioterrorism Risk, National Academy of Science, 2005-2008; National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program’s (NEHRP) Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction, 2007-present.

Corporate and Public Sector Leadership 2005-2009
Testimony to U.S. House of Representatives (Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises of the House Financial Services Committee), on “Examining a Legislative Solution to Extend and Revise the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA).” June 21, 2007; Member of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program’s Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction; Member of the Committee on Bioterrorism Risk, National Academy of Science; Member of the National Science Foundation program on NSF Hazard Research Program for Young Faculty Members 2005; Member of the National Academies Board on Radioactive Waste Management 2005

Representative Publications
Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes (with Neil Doherty, Martin Grace, Robert Klein, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Mark Pauly), The Wharton Risk Management Center’s report on Phase II of its study in conjunction with Georgia State University and the Insurance Information Institute, March, 2008. MIT Press (forthcoming). (with R. Daniels and D. Kettl)
On Risk and Disaster: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (2006).

(with N. Doherty, E. Goldsmith, S. Harrington, P. Kleindorfer, E. Michel-Kerjan, M. Pauly, I. Rosenthal, and P. Schmeidler)
TRIA and Beyond. Wharton Risk Center (2005).

Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk P. Grossi and C. Patel, eds., Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers (2005).

“Long-Term Insurance for Reducing Losses from Catastrophic Risks.” Social Research. 75:3 (Forthcoming). (with A. Muermann) “Self-protection and insurance with interdependencies,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, (2008) 36:103–123. (with G. Heal)
“Modeling Interdependent Risks” Risk Analysis, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 621-634, 2007.

(with E. Michel-Kerjan)
“Climate Change, Insurability, and Liability” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 155, June 2007.

(with D. Krantz)
“Goals and Plans in Decision Making” Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 137-168, June 2007.

(with M. Pauly) “Rules Rather than Discretion: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina,” in Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Vol. 33, No. 1-2, Sept 2006.