Managing collective risk

Global economic problems like mitigating climate change, fighting poverty, or regulating speculation on financial markets cannot be properly addressed considering behavioral reactions to the uncertainties involved. Additionally, many important economic and politically relevant decisions are not made on an individual basis, but include a social perspective and are made on a collective basis. Example are thereby boards of directors or supervisory boards and parliaments or other political bodies.

Our goal is to contribute to a better and more comprehensive understanding of behavior under uncertainty by measuring and analyzing (collective) risk taking, both from an individual and a social perspective. The main focus relies thereby on

• The analysis of global economic problems as collective risk taking
• Differences between individual and collective decision making
• Social influences on risk perception and behavior
• The interdependence of risk and inequality