2015 Theses Doctoral

Governing Uncertainty: Financial policies for risk

Teh, Tse-Ling

This dissertation determines how to improve the financial management of natural disaster risks through better design of risk transfer instruments and insurance. By analyzing theoretical models, field surveys and numerical simulations, innovative risk transfer mechanisms that lead to improvements in welfare are constructed and examined. The chapters of my dissertation contribute to a growing field of academic research concerning how to manage natural disaster and extreme weather risks in the face of climate change. In designing policies for the changing environment, uncertainty and risk play a large role. This dissertation recognizes and harnesses these uncertainties to create a framework for risk transfer in the case of extreme events.