Towards best practice: combining evidence‐based research,structured assessment and professional judgement

Limitations of instruments adopting consensus and actuarial approaches are well documented when assessing risk of abusive behaviour. Whilst the consensus approach is flexible and useful for structuring information, it relies upon the practitioner's ability to combine information and apply knowledge of empirical research. The actuarial approach involves a graduated probability measure in the form of a score that determines the likelihood of a particular event occurring; however, this approach focuses upon static risk factors and tends to be inflexible given its necessary reliance on nomothetic factors. A third approach, structured professional judgement comprises evidence‐based risk factors and decision‐making guidelines to inform professional judgement and standardize assessments. Instruments focus upon dynamic risk factors that assist practitioners monitor risk levels and manage risk. This approach is useful for social work practice that commonly requires ongoing risk assessments and risk management. Structured professional judgement has not been meaningfully explored in Australian child protection practice despite it being used successfully for approximately two decades for assessing a range of offending and violent behaviour. Given the complexity of child protection cases, further research on approaches to risk assessment that combine evidence‐based research, structured assessment and clinical judgement, is warranted.     

电网公司委托贷款财务风险预警模型的构建与应用

委托贷款财务风险控制是电网公司面临的一项重要课题。文章以县级电网子公司为贷款对象,通过改进传统的Z分数模型,运用因子分析等方法构建电网公司委托贷款财务风险的预警模型,并试图通过一个示范性案例说明模型的具体应用并验证模型的可行性。研究表明：电网公司委托贷款财务风险预警模型是可构建的,且所构建的模型具有可操作性,对提升电网公司委托贷款财务风险管理水平具有实用价值。     

国内外商业银行房地产贷款风险管理比较研究

商业银行房地产贷款业务是商业银行资产业务的重要组成部分。目前 ,最大的金融风险是商业银行贷款风险 ,尤其是商业银行房地产贷款风险 ,因此 ,风险管理就显得非常重要和必要     

Financial access and household’s borrowing: Policy perspectives of an emerging economy

This paper analyzes access to finance based on the usage of financial services by Indian households. Based on two rounds of nationally representative All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) for 2002 and 2012, we examine how access to credit is associated with a household's socioeconomic and demographic characteristics using Heckman’s two-step approach procedure. Our results show that belonging to higher asset quintile groups has a statistically significant positive effect on the household's decision to take loans only from the formal sector in both rounds and significant negative effects on taking a loan only from the informal sector. Similarly, social and religious groups play a significant role in the decision of the household to take a loan. Households with more educated adults are more likely to take a loan. Households involved in regular wage-earning occupations in urban areas are more likely to take a loan from formal sources. Thus, the importance of policy placing greater emphasis on demand-side barriers rather than on improving the physical availability of formal financial services to promote financial inclusion in India.     

Social perception of natural risks by local residents in developing countries—The example of the coastal area of Benin

Risk management and planning activities cannot be sustainably and efficiently implemented unless being based on a participative approach resulting from the problem consciousness and perception of the local inhabitants. This requires that the measures linked to problem perception and assessment by local stakeholders, above all by the population affected, are known. This investigation conducted in the flat Beninese coastal lagoon areas aims to assess the local inhabitants’ risk perception. The results are the following: (i) the stakeholders have group-specific ways of risk perception (according to ethnicity, social group, age); (ii) every risk management strategy should be based on the group-specific ways of risk perception and assessment; (iii) the acceptance of a given risk management strategy including interactive ways of participation can be advanced through education, dissemination of risk information as well as through communication between stakeholders.     

An Evaluation of the Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM) Training with an Area Agency on Aging

Firearms are a significant risk factor in suicide and older adults are disproportionately impacted in suicide by this means. This study investigated the impact of Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM) training with geriatric case managers at an Area Agency on Aging. A concurrent mixed methods approach was used to explore 1) geriatric case managers’ attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions about counseling on access to lethal means following CALM training, and 2) perceived barriers to assessing for suicidality and counseling clients on access to firearms. The CALM evaluation data was collected immediately posttest at CALM training, at three-month follow up. Results indicated that 38% of respondents reported they had, since CALM training, discussed reducing access to lethal means with clients and/or families. At three-month follow up, data showed that most beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions about counseling clients and families on this topic increased. Focus group findings indicated that training had a positive effect on participants’ attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions about counseling on access to lethal means.The findings of the present study offer additional evidence and implication for trainings of this type.     

The influence of probabilities on the response mode bias in utility elicitation

The response mode bias, in which subjects exhibit different risk attitudes when assessing certainty equivalents versus indifference probabilities, is a well-known phenomenon in the assessment of utility functions. In this empirical study, we develop and apply a cardinal measure of risk attitudes to analyze not only the existence, but also the strength of this phenomenon. Since probability levels involved in decision problems are already known to have a strong impact on behavior, we use this approach to study the impact of probabilities on the extent of the response mode bias. We find that the direction in which probabilities influence measured risk aversion is the opposite in the certainty equivalence (CE) method versus in the probability equivalence (PE) method. Utilizing the CE elicitation approach leads to an increase of risk seeking for gambles involving high probabilities. For the PE method, subjects tend to behave risk averse with gambles of high probabilities. This behavior is reversed in the gain domain. This “tailwhip” effect is consistently replicated in several experiments, involving both loss and gain domains of lotteries.     

Risk Assessment Using Psychological Profiling Techniques: An Evaluation of Possibilities

Correspondence to John Hopton, 64 Peveril Close, Whitefield, Manchester M45 6NR, UK. Summary In this paper the writer reviews the available literature onpsychological profiling, discusses the differences between thefacet approach to psychological profiling and other techniqueswhich have been labelled ‘psychological profiling’,and discusses the applications of the facet approach. This discussionis followed by a critical evaluation of the potential of thefacet approach as a means of assessing whether or not a personsuffering from mental distress should be regarded as a riskto herself/himself or to other people. Finally, there is a discussionof issues around anti-oppressive and and-discriminatory practice,and the writer concludes that, in the light of recent mentalhealth legislation and mental health policy decisions, the useof psychological profiling as a means of risk assessment couldreduce the number of mentally distressed persons subjected tointrusive surveillance and/or compulsorily admitted to secureaccommodation.     

Does Relationship Lending Still Matter in the Consumer Banking Sector? Evidence from the Automobile Loan Market*

Objective. This article examines the role of relationship lending in the automobile loan market at a community development credit union (CDCU) and at a traditional community bank. Method. Data collected from actual car loan applications are used in a probit analysis to estimate the importance of selected demographic, financial, and loan‐specific variables on the probability of loan approval at the two types of financial institutions. Results. We first show that the community bank relies on credit scoring, not relationship lending. Relationship lending is, however, a critical factor in the loan decision at the CDCU. Low‐income households with strong ties to the CDCU are likely to receive loans, despite poor credit histories. Conclusions. If consolidation, deregulation, and technology move mainstream financial institutions away from relationship lending and toward credit scoring, CDCUs will occupy an increasingly critical niche for low‐income households.     

The circular construction of “risk” for children of oppressed groups: Israeli social workers' perspectives on children of Ethiopian origin

This article presents the findings of a research project that explored the perceptions and constructions of Israeli social workers, serving families of Ethiopian origin in Israel, regarding “risk” vis‐à‐vis the children of this community. Thirty semistructured in‐depth interviews with social workers of Ethiopian and non‐Ethiopian origin were conducted and thematically analysed. The study findings indicate that the risk posed to children from the Ethiopian community, as conceived by the social workers charged with their treatment, tends to emerge in the interface between four main contexts: the societal, the neighbourhood, the education system, and the welfare system. Resembling the cycle of poverty, in which a cyclical set of forces trap people in perpetual poverty, children from minority groups are often caught in a cycle of risk. In each of these four contexts, a circular movement was observed in the construction of risk. Breaking the circularity of “risk” requires a context‐informed approach that adopts the perspectives of critical theories, which consider structural factors, power relations, and sociopolitical context when assessing “risk” for children in general, and for children of oppressed groups in particular.     

The conceptualization and measurement of need: a key to guiding policy and practice in children's services

Effective services for children must be grounded in the sound conceptualization and measurement of need. The concept of need is often misunderstood because it is used in different ways. Defining need as both a requisite and a goal is desirable. The conceptualization ought to rest on an acceptance that not only are objective and universal needs to attain physical health and autonomy requirements for all human beings, but subjective needs may also sit alongside of universal needs. The ecological/developmental perspective is best suited as a framework for assessing the needs of children. One of its tenets, the importance of understanding the interaction of risk and protective factors, is highly relevant to assessing needs. An assessment of the interaction of risk and protective factors operating in a child's life reveals the requisites and goals necessary for child development. The proposed approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of need when combined will be conducive to better assessment and intervention by social workers with children.     

Willingness to Pay for Health Protection: Inadequate Sensitivity to Probability?

Efficient investments in health protection require valid estimates of the public's willingness to forgo consumption for diminished probabilities of death, injury, and disease. Stated valuations of risk reduction are not valid measures of economic preference if the valuations are insensitive to probability variation. This article reviews the existing literature on CV studies of reductions in health risk and finds that most studies are poorly designed to assess the sensitivity of stated valuations to changes in risk magnitude. Replication of a recent study published in this journal by Johannesson et al. (1997) demonstrates how serious the problem of insensitivity can be, even for a study that reports plausible results. New empirical results are presented from telephone surveys designed to provide internal and external tests of how WTP responds to size of risk reduction. The effect of variations in instrument design on estimated sensitivity to magnitude is examined. Overall, estimated WTP for risk reduction is inadequately sensitive to the difference in probability, that is, the magnitude of the difference in WTP for different reductions in risk is typically smaller than suggested by standard economic theory. Additional research to improve methods for communicating changes in risk is needed, and future studies of stated WTP to reduce risk should include rigorous validity checks.     

Risk and Self-Protection: A State-Contingent View

This article is a brief outline of the implications of state-contingent production for the self-insurance problem. A general state-contingent approach to choice and production under uncertainty is presented. Upper and lower bounds for willingness-to-pay for reductions in ambient risk are derived.     

Gender and the credit rationing of small businesses

Rapid small business ownership growth rates among women have motivated research on issues related to gender and small business performance. The importance of credit access for the success of small businesses, as well as evidence that women have less access to credit than male business owners, has led researchers to explore the reasons for this. In this paper, we estimate a model of credit rationing by gender of the business owner. Our results are consistent with previous studies that find higher loan denial rates and lower loan application rates among women compared with men. Testing the robustness of the results we find that women seem to be rationing themselves in the credit market rather than being discriminated against by banks. Reasons for this self-rationing behavior are an important topic for further research.     

围绕商业银行改革和发展的若干热点问题辨析

商业银行“惜贷”、“慎贷”的背后潜藏着我国经济运行过程中深层次的矛盾。“企业给银行打工”、“信贷员领导下的厂长责任制”同样是我国银企关系扭曲的真实写照。金融机构“存差”扩大的根本原因是由其负债的存款单一性和资产的多元化所造成的。当前的商业银行体系不是“夕阳产业” ,不应也不能加以“抛弃”。     

加强我国地方政府债务管理的对策建议——基于中央政府、地方政府和金融机构的三方博弈分析

近年来,地方政府债务问题已成为影响中国经济长期稳定增长不可忽视的重要因素。中央政府、地方政府和金融机构在地方政府债务问题上已形成博弈之势。在这种情况下,要防范和化解政府债务风险应建立偿债机制和风险预警体系、加强金融机构的监管、改变现行的政绩评估机制、修改现行《预算法》等。     

中国民众主观社会地位的地域差异:基于对CFPS2012成人问卷数据的“虚拟情境锚定法”分析

本文基于“中国家庭动态跟踪调查”的2012年成人问卷数据,通过“虚拟情境锚定法”研究中国民众的主观社会地位差异,探讨当前中国社会的分层现状。研究显示,当前中国社会居民的主观社会地位存在地区差异。在中国现代化发展程度较高的地区,个体的后致性因素（如教育、职业等）对社会地位认同具有更加显著的影响,而在欠发达地区,还没有形成稳定的评价标准。本研究体现了“虚拟情境锚定法”善于处理主观抽象概念的特征,这种方法在未来的社会科学研究中将会有很广泛的应用空间。     

When is evaluation a scientific activity,when is it not?

Because of the nature of social work, evaluating its impact on users presents a range of definitional and design problems calling into question the scientific basis of its evaluation. Competing paradigms, claiming to be the only seekers of the truth, may not always suit the problem under investigation or may provide limited answers to questions of outcome. Concepts such as truth, objectivity and certainty are elusive even in the physical sciences and are more so when it comes to human interactions with which social work is concerned. With the limitations of each of the established paradigms in mind, the paper puts forward the idea of a composite/pluralist approach. Such an approach can produce relatively reliable and valid results by combining statistical and qualitative methods, including the use of control and comparative samples and of pre- and pro-tests.     

Suicide risk assessment in the depressed elderly patient with cancer

Although several studies have identified different factors that increase the risk for suicide in the elderly, depression, especially in cancer patients, puts people at even greater risk. In geriatric patients with co-morbid illnesses, depression is often diagnosed or overlooked because of the assumption that it is to be expected. When patients with cancer are diagnosed with depression, it is imperative that clinicians have a clear-cut tool for assessing and identifying signs of suicidality in order to develop a treatment plan to manage the patient. This article delineates the steps involved in conducting a thorough and systematic suicide risk assessment in depressed elderly patients with cancer.