Areas of Research
Chemical Safety
Managing physical accident hazards is significantly different from managing most conventional business and finance risks. Assessment of the relative importance of preventative investments must center on concerns about human life and health which are difficult to balance against financial considerations. The importance of other non-financial factors related to prevention and accidents... >> more
Climate Change
The direct and indirect impacts of climate change -- activities to limit future emissions of greenhouse gases, and activities undertaken to adapt to climate change -- are all likely to have major implications for the insurance and financial industries. The Wharton Risk Center research activities in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon's Climate Decision Making Center focus on four key areas:Direct Climate... >> more
Critical Infrastructure
Approaches toward "infrastructure" policy in the United States have evolved over the past century from an initial emphasis on infrastructure adequacy, to a move toward deregulation with the aim of increasing efficiency, to a recent focus on infrastructure "protection." Over the past decade, policy makers, executives, military leaders, and academics have sought effective strategies to guard... >> more
Decision Processes
How do individuals and organizations make decisions regarding risk? How can they make more effective decisions? The Center is researching decision processes in areas that include consumer behavior with respect to insurance and protective activities, as well as how industrial firms take steps to prevent low probability product failures and major accidents and to cope with them when they do occur... >> more
Drug Safety
The objective of Drug Safety Project is (a) to better understand the impact of different factors in identification and reduction of adverse drug effects during a drug's life cycle which extends from drug discovery to post marketing, (b) to research alternatives to the current drug development and approval system which would reduce the risk of adverse drug effects improving both public health and corporate financial performance... >> more
Effective Risk Management
Launched in 2010, the Travelers/Wharton Partnership for Research on Risk Management and Leadership is a research initiative in the areas of risk management and leadership. The project is a joint venture between the Travelers Companies, the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center and the Wharton Center for Leadership... >> more
Insuring Risks of Large-Scale Disasters
Hurricane Katrina highlights the fact that the United States does not have a systematic, coherent and well thought out approach for dealing with large-scale natural disasters. It has raised a number of questions regarding the role that insurance can or should play in providing protection against losses to residential and commercial structures... >> more
Interdependent Security
IDS games are a recently introduced class of models that captures a wide variety of collective risk and decision-making scenarios that include problems in airline security, corporate governance, computer-network security, supply-chain security, and vaccinations against diseases... >> more
Near Miss
Near-Misses are small incidents which can help identify and mitigate potential problems and systemic risks. The Near-Miss Project, which started in 2000, initially focused on understanding how such information can help reduce operational risks related to safety, health and environment in chemical industry. Based on over 100 interviews at 20 industrial sites of five Fortune 500 corporations... >> more
Terrorism Insurance
Terrorism risk poses fundamental challenges to our national security which must be seen in a dynamic perspective as the threat is continuously evolving. One of these challenges is associated with terrorism insurance coverage... >> more
Third Party Inspections
Underlying public cries for better or increased inspections that often follow an industry disaster or near-disaster is a fundamental problem of virtually every regulatory agency and regulated industry: the number of regulated firms far exceeds the resources of agencies to inspect those firms. Research at the Risk Center is directed towards examining the value of enhancing the role that third-parties play in implementing regulations.
