The COVID-19 pandemic is permanently changing modern social and economic coexistence. Most governments have declared infection control to be their top priority while citizens face great restrictions on their civil rights. A pandemic is an exemplary scenario in which political actors must decide about future, and thus uncertain, events. This paper tries to present a tool well established in the field of entrepreneurial and management decision making which could also be a first benchmark for political decisions. Our approach builds on the standard epidemiological SEIR model in combination with simulation techniques used in risk management. By our case study we want to demonstrate the opportunities that risk management techniques, especially risk analyses using Monte Carlo simulation, can provide to policy makers in general, and in a public health crisis in particular. Hence, our case study can be used as a framework for political decision making under incomplete information and uncertainty. Overall, we want to point out that a health policy that aims to provide comprehensive protection against infection should also be based on economic criteria. This is without prejudice to the integration of ethical considerations in the final political decision.

Environmental criteria have become a critical issue for the evaluation of projects and products, particularly for businesses with extensive life cycles. Sustainability criteria and project risk management are underexplored in real estate development, and thus endanger business survival. The aim of this article is to improve the understanding of uncertainties in the real estate industry by using a stochastic risk assessment approach and to broaden the risk assessment methodology. Thus, this article investigates the importance of material selection regarding external and project risk for real estate development. Aside from conventional projects, risks are analyzed for projects with high-quality materials (HQMs) that are characterized by environmental benefits. In following a mixed method approach, we began by conducting interviews with developers about the most important risks, and later incorporating these factors into a stochastic cash-flow model. Finally, we illustrated our findings in a case study. Overall, the highest risks were shown from resource prices and changing regulations, while the rankings of the two materials differ slightly; HQMs rank higher on the created risk index than conventional materials. The cash-flow model shows that conventional materials perform slightly better than HQMs, although uncertainties within the calculations are similar. The article contributes to risk management and decision-making for real estate projects by providing insights into the discussion and analysis of the financial performance of sustainable construction material and design that might be crucial for disruptive innovations. We present a model that integrates environmental and long-term effects in the cash-flow evaluation of real estate projects, thereby increasing managerial flexibility.

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