About
Emeritus Professor Johnnie Johnson is a Professor of Decision and Risk Analysis within Southampton Business School at the University of Southampton.
Professor Johnson founded and until recently acted as Director of the Centre for Risk Research at the University which aims 'to encourage a deeper appreciation of the nature of risk, to develop approaches to its analysis, and to assist organisations in effectively managing risk'. He is on the Editorial Board of the several leading international academic journals. Professor Johnson has also been visiting scholar at the University of Hamburg (since 2006). He is currently Vice-president of the Asia Pacific Association for Gambling Studies (APAGS) and permanent member of their Academic Committee.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Risk taking behaviour
- Use of information in betting markets
- Decision-making under uncertainty
- Behaviour of traders in speculative markets
- Psychology of risk behaviour
Current research
Professor Johnson's research is centered on risk taking behaviour in a range of settings and aims to improve future predcitions and the quality of decisions which fully utilise quantitative and qualitative information. His research is particularly focused on analysing behaviour in speculative markets, including betting, prediction and regular financial markets. He is particularly interested in the manner in which decisions are made in these markets and the extent to which available information is used by market participants. Professor Johnson's research has been conducted in projects funded by a range of Research Councils and commercial organisations (£3M+). Results of this research are published in two books, in contributions to a further 23 books, in more than 70 articles in leading international journals and in more than 150 international conference papers.
A selection of current and previous topics explored by Professor Johnson's PhD students:
- The role of web information in the investor decision-making process.
- Semi-strong efficiency of football and horserace betting markets.
- Information-based trading strategies in a competitive environment.
- The operation and efficiency of corporate prediction markets.
- Investigation of financial trading behaviour
- Responses to volatile market price changes.
- Examination of psychological effects on trading behaviour in financial markets.
- Biased decision-making in a naturalistic environment: Implications for forecasts of competitive events.
- The implications of information processing efficiency on decision-making.
- Similarities in investment strategies between agents in financial and betting markets.
- Overconfidence amongst financial market traders.
- Evidence for use of the anchoring heuristic in prediction markets
- Searching for information inefficiency: Empirical evidence for the UK bookmaker horserace betting market
Professor Johnson will consider applications to undertake PhD research study related to his research areas.
Research projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Professor Johnson’s teaching focuses on decision and risk analysis.
He has a particular interest in developing effective, interactive teaching methods and he was awarded:
- The National Partnership Trust Award for 'innovation and development in higher education within the UK'
- The 'Dean's Teaching and Learning' prize at City University Business School, and on several occasions has been voted:
- 'Lecturer of the Semester' by University of Southampton students,
- The 'Outstanding Lecturer in the Faculty' by the Southampton University Students Union.
Biography
Emeritus Professor Johnson was awarded a first class honours degree in Mathematics and Management Science from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. He then joined a Lloyd's insurance broker (Stewart Wrightson), working as a risk financing and assessment executive.
He completed professional examinations for the Chartered Insurance Institute and was awarded the Lloyds Insurance Brokers Association Prize for outstanding performance.
Subsequently, he was appointed Stewart Wrightson Research Fellow (exploring various aspects of risk assessment) at the University of Nottingham, and then lecturer in Management Science at the University of Southampton; where he was awarded his PhD ('Decision-making in a risky environment: Insights from the UK horserace betting market).
He was elected Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and awarded the title Chartered Mathematician. In 1998 he was awarded a personal chair in 'Decision and Risk Analysis'.
Professor Johnson has advised a number of organisations operating in speculative financial markets concerning trading strategies and risk analysis and has delivered many related executive development courses (e.g. to Bank of China). Based on his research, Professor Johnson has recently developed a new financial derivative to aid risk management trading; international patents are pending.