RISK SHIFTING

The transfer of risk to another party. Risk shifting has many connotations, the most common being the tendency of a company or financial institution facing financial distress to take on excessive risk. This high-risk behavior is generally undertaken with the objective of generating high rewards to equity owners – who face little additional downside risk but may garner significant extra return – and has the effect of shifting risk from shareholders to debt holders. Risk shifting also occurs when a company goes from offering a defined benefit plan to its employees, to a defined contribution plan. In this case, the risk associated with pensions has shifted from the company to its employees.