Rising from the Ashes: A Governance Perspective on Emerging Systemic Risks

Abstract

Unpredictable events -like an infrastructure failure such as a blackout (e.g. the 1999 southern Brazil blackout or the northeast blackout of 2003 that occurred in the US and Canada), a large-scale financial crisis with deep consequences on the real economy (e.g. the Icelandic and the Greek crises), a non-conventional terrorist attack (committed with chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear weapons), the risk related to the exploitation of new technologies (typically nanotechnologies), or a geophysical event (as the 2010 volcanic ash crisis or the 2011 Japan earthquake) - may suddenly cause large-scale losses. The knock-on effect of these events grows beyond the direct social and economic impact on a specific geographic area, affecting simultaneously different regions and imposing immediate regulatory answers.