Congratulations to the 2017 finalists
The winner of the 2017 Risk Prize was announced at the Risk Summit on 23 June 2017.
First place finalist
Steven Cooney, Executive MBA Candidate, Cambridge Judge Business School
The American coal power industry has been under siege from regulation, partially driven by concerns about climate change, and historically low natural gas prices, which is largely a result of the US shale revolution. This paper will utilise scenarios to evaluate how US railroads, who generate a significant proportion of their revenue from coal transportation, can best adapt to a changing energy generation and resource production market.
Honourable mentions
Stuart Barr, MBA Candidate, Cambridge Judge Business School
Academic literature treats risk almost exclusively as a negative concept: to be mitigated. This essay asserts that this one-sided orthodoxy leads to an incomplete understanding, and charts new territory by investigating its upside, using an ethnographic study of Dame Shirley Bassey performing live rather than miming at the 2013 Academy Awards.
Whilst producers like to minimise operational and reputational risk inherent in genuinely live performances, music artistes like the jeopardy of performing live because of the adrenaline-driven emotional enhancement and spontaneity it generates.
By examining the underlying reward factors that performing with jeopardy brings, the author proposes that the best possible outcome is only achieved when the risk-minimisation needs of producers are balanced with the jeopardy-maximisation needs of performers. A new bilateral framework is proposed that adds an upside dimension to conventional risk assessment.
There is a void of research into the upsides of risk, and this essay suggests that an enriched understanding of it could bring greater insight into fields as diverse as financial trading, extreme sports, the military and emergency medicine.
Ashish Srivastava, MFin Candidate, Cambridge Judge Business School
The likelihood of not getting the desired funding at an appropriate cost or the probability of bearing an undue loss of value in a fire sale is recognised as the liquidity risk. However, a flat idiosyncratic liquidity risk does not necessarily translate into a similar risk neutral position at the systemic level. Systemic liquidity risk emanates from the underestimation and imprecise understanding of the liquidity conundrum and its causal relationship with the exogenous or endogenous factors. Systemic risk finally devolves at the macro level with serious repercussions. This paper attempts a macroeconomic evaluation of the systemic liquidity risk from the perspective of developing economies. As a test case, the relevant macroeconomic data from the Indian financial system has been used for the purpose of analysis, modelling and interpretation.
