Making a Market for Acts of God: The Practice of Risk Trading in the Global Reinsurance Industry - Hardcover

Jarzabkowski, Paula; Bednarek, Rebecca; Spee, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199664765 ISBN 13: 9780199664764

Verlag: OUP Oxford, 2015

Über diesen Titel

Críticas:

The authors should be commended first for taking on such a substantive project and second for presenting it in so comprehensive and comprehensible a theoretical story. (Mark J. Zbaracki, Administrative Science Quarterly)

The biggest asset of this book is its comprehensive ethnography. Anyone interested in the sociology of insurance and financial markets will profit from having read this striking empirical account of the reinsurance industry. (Vera Linke, Economic Sociology)

Jarzabkowski, Bednarek, and Spees fascinating book on the reinsurance industry. From 2009 to 2012, the authors conducted a global ethnographic study of the reinsurance market, observing practitioners, particularly underwriters, as they went about their business. Their work is a contribution to the burgeoning field of social studies of financial markets. The theoretical focus here is on relations and practices rather than individuals and organizationson how a global market is made through the common practices and understandings that underwriters enact. In parallel to theoretical arguments, we are treated to a number of captivating vignettes from the authors observations of underwriters at work, taking us from London to Singapore, from Florida to Bermuda. (A. Tsanakas, The Journal of Risk and Insurance)

Jarzabkowskis work is striking for at least two reasons. First, the question of how society protects itself from the cost of natural disasters is becoming very important, given the climate change challenges that the United Nations has been debating this week. Second, this project touches on a point that matters beyond the insurance world: namely, that we all have an amazing tendency to fool ourselves. For what Jarzabkowskis team discovered when they put insurance brokers under the microscope was that they use words such as markets, risk, diversification and globalisation in very contradictory ways. (Gillian Tett, The Financial Times)

This detailed study covers the reinsurance underwriters who manage the risk of natural disasters that result in extreme claims ... The authors begin the book with an overview of the reinsurance market. The chapters that follow cover managing collective risk, transforming disasters into deals, managing the absence of models, supporting competition in a consensus market, moving from a market for acts of God to one for commodities, and proposing a practice theory of the market. (J. Levy, University of North Texas Libraries, CHOICE)

Darwin travelled to the Galapagos to see how species evolved. Paula travelled to more congenial places - Bermuda, Lloyds of London, European capitals, Asian capitals and Monte Carlo to see the reinsurance tribes at work. The result is a groundbreaking book explaining what the different tribes actually do. It is an insightful and vivid account that explains how our market works, how it identifies, prices and manages risk. It also provides important warnings regarding the implications of recent changes to industry structure. It is a must read for anyone interested in (re)insurance, including those working in this industry. (Bronek Masojada, CEO Hiscox Group)

This path-breaking book provides the first extended study of the world of reinsurance underwriters and their risk-trading expertise and practice. Based on careful ethnographic analysis at a number of global sites, the authors provide insights into the unique networks and practices which constitute the global reinsurance market and its role as the ultimate societal safety net against large scale acts of God. This is a book about reinsurance but Jarzabkowski, Bednarek and Spee have achieved much more than this, making it a must read for anyone working on practice theory, risk studies, economic sociology and social studies of finance. (Michael Power, London School of Economics and Political Science)

We thought that the risk society would cause humanity to ponder the sustainability of the conditions of its existence. The book shows, however, that the risk society is also, above all, a formidable opportunity for financial markets. By analysing how reinsurers turn natural disasters unpredictable and theoretically incalculable Acts of God into tradable objects, the authors provide a major contribution to understanding the marketization of our societies and its implications. (Michel Callon, Professeur à l'Ecole des mines de Paris, CSI. Ecole des mines de Paris)

Making a Market for Acts of God provides a fascinating and incisive practice-based account of how reinsurance markets function for large-scale disasters, where assessment of risk can be more of an art than a science. Reporting on an ambitious project that details how a globally distributed market gets coordinated, it is a must read for those interested in practice theory, social studies of markets, and the social construction of risk. (Michael Lounsbury, Associate Dean of Research, Thornton A. Graham Chair, University of Alberta)

This ethnographic study of the insurance industry performs an important and urgent task: it exposes the everyday practices by which global financial markets work. The authors bring wonderful clarity to difficult themes, from the structuring of financial deals to developing a macro-level theory of social practice that will be insightful for scholars adopting strategy-as-practice or practice approaches more broadly. This book will be a stimulating read for financial professionals, social scientists, regulators and policy makers alike. (Richard Whittington, Professor of Strategy, Said Business School, University of Oxford)

Reseña del editor:

Reinsurance is a financial market that trades in the risk of unpredictable and devastating disasters - such as Hurricane Katrina, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Such disasters are increasing in both frequency and severity, with the cost of their losses mounting rapidly. Reinsurance insures insurance companies, enabling them to pay claims arising from these losses. It is thus a market mechanism that is a critical part of the social and economic safety net, helping to pick up the pieces after disasters. Yet, how is the risk of such disasters calculated and traded in a global market?

This book brings to life the reinsurance market through vivid real-life tales that draw from an ethnographic, "fly-on-the-wall" study of the global reinsurance industry over three annual cycles. The authors shadowed underwriters around the world as they traded risks through multiple disasters. For instance, this book takes readers into the desperate hours of pricing Japanese risks during March 2011, while the devastating aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake is unfolding. To show how the market works, the book offers authentic tales gathered from observations of reinsurers in Bermuda, Lloyd's of London, Continental Europe and SE Asia as they evaluate, price and compete for different risks as part of their everyday practice.

Understanding how this market for disasters works has never been more critical given the impact of climate change and increased global connectivity, where a flood in one country can trigger losses to supply chains around the world. The authors develop a novel concept of how global markets work, which advances scholarship and challenges current thinking about how financial markets trade in intangible assets such as risk.

This book will be useful to readers interested in markets for disasters, insurance, reinsurance and financial markets, and academics interested in the practice of financial markets specifically or the practice of strategy and organizations generally.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: OUP Oxford
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0199664765
• ISBN 13: 9780199664764
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 254