International Nature Research Articles

From the Editor: A Little Something for (Almost) Everyone

Over the course of its 70? year history, family therapy has grown from being comprised of a small group of innovative thinkers and practitioners known mostly to themselves into a large and diverse field that has worldwide recognition as an effective means for helping individuals, couples, and families. What is more, this field is made up of an ever expanding group of professionals who play many different roles and have a wide range of interests. Such variety, of course, is essential and speaks to the health and long-term viability of the field. That is, without the expansion and development of theory our approaches would likely become outmoded and less effective. Without educators and supervisors trainees in the field would have nowhere to turn for the instruction necessary to become well-qualified professionals. Without close scrutiny of our approaches and assessment tools we might find ourselves doing more harm than good. Thus it is important that journals such as Contemporary Family Therapy continue to support and encourage the various roles and interests of the field’s members. Sometimes this happens with special editions comprised of articles devoted to a single topic. Other times journal editors create several sections, with each article fitting into a particular category. And then there are instances, as with the current edition, when there is such a range of topics that there seems to be a little something for (almost) everyone. Accordingly, the menu for this edition follows, with interest group indicated for each. My hope is that readers will find one or more articles that relate(s) to a current area of interest as well as articles that expand their focus to include other areas for exploration. Given the international nature of this journal, I also have indicated the authors’ country of origin at the end of each article summary. For those interested in education-informed practice and practice-informed education: ‘‘The Importance of Spirituality in Couple and Family Therapy: A Comparative Study of Therapists’ and Educators’ Beliefs’’ by Thomas Stone Carlson, Christi McGeorge, and Amy Anderson sheds light on differences and similarities between those teaching and those practicing relative to the incorporation of spirituality in therapy with clients (USA).

Scientific productivity and academic promotion: a study on French and Italian physicists

The article examines the determinants of scientific productivity (number of articles and journals’ impact factor) for a panel of about 3600 French and Italian academic physicists active in 2004–2005. Endogeneity problems concerning promotion and productivity are addressed by specifying a generalized Tobit model, in which a selection probit equation accounts for the individual scientist’s probability of promotion to her present rank, and a productivity regression estimates the effects of age, gender, cohort of entry, and collaboration characteristics, conditional on the scientist’s rank. We find that the size and international nature of collaborative projects and co-authors’ past productivity have very significant impacts on current productivity, while age, gender, and past productivity are also influential determinants of both productivity and probability of promotion. Furthermore we show that the stop and go policies of recruitment and promotion, typical of the Italian and French centralized academic systems of governance, can leave significant long-lasting cohort effects on research productivity.

Editorial: Interdisciplinary, International, Inspiring!

Editorial: Interdisciplinary, International, Inspiring!

Die Identifikation internationaler Konjunkturzyklen in disaggregierten Daten: Deutschland, Frankreich und Großbritannien, 1862–1913

This article analyzes international business cycles in Europe 1862-1913 using disaggregated data and Dynamic Factor Analysis. It is important to know if crises are of national or international nature in order to correctly understand their causes and develop adequate solutions to prevent future crises. In comparison with estimates of real national product there is more evidence for international business cycles in disaggregated data of Germany, France and Great Britain before World War I. This is because data used to construct historical national accounts are often not sufficient, and especially because little is known about general price fluctuations. Thus, national products in current prices show higher degrees of international correlation than deflated ones although price indices themselves are not very well correlated across countries.

How health related issues are likely to drive dispersion modelling over the next decade

In the future, the focus of dispersion modelling may centre on the aggregation of sources, atmospheric chemical reactions and longer range transport. This will put greater emphasis on the use of assimilated meteorological data as models are used to assess public policy options to minimise the impacts of air pollutants on human health and welfare. Because of the international nature of threats, the effort to develop models will require a high degree of cooperation among those affected. This paper reviews the history and current status of dispersion modelling applications in the USA with the focus of their implication being on health and welfare impacts. Furthermore, this paper shares our views regarding the trends and future applications of dispersion models.

Creating Higher Education Academic and Information Technology Resources in an International Context

A number of contemporary factors have combined to create a situation that encourages and supports international collaboration among institutions of higher education. Factors such as the globalization of the economy, the increasingly international nature of higher education, and the development of an inexpensive and virtually worldwide system of communication, the Internet, have all played their part. This paper focuses on one aspect of international collaboration—the creation and dissemination of information resources and information/educational technologies, such as software. Movements such as Open Source and Open Access have encouraged colleges and universities to consider alternatives to the dominant model for acquiring everything from college textbooks to academic computing software. Today for-profit companies supply most such resources to institutions, faculty, and students. The open source software approach is an alternative based on collaboration between both institutions and individuals, and it is a viable alternative to commercial, for-profit development and dissemination systems. Today, open access journals, for example, compete with journals from commercial publishers and provide free access to anyone via the Internet. Resources such as the courseware management system, Moodle, and the multipurpose software package, Sakai, are examples of open source software-developed resources that are widely used today in higher education. The OpenCourseware initiative at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an example of free and open dissemination of course resources. Variations of the open source software model support the creation of everything from infrastructure software such as Sakai to remixable textbooks. Remixing is, in fact, a major advantage of the approach Connexions, based at Rice University, has taken to create information resources for educational use. Open access, open source, and other similar approaches can be subsumed under the term open education. That movement is a viable, and rapidly growing, alternative for the creation and distribution of information and information technology resources for higher education that is particularly suited to collaborative, international partnerships.

King Matthias in Hungarian and European folklore

The folklore surrounding the figure of King Matthias offers an illuminating example of the international nature of both the culture of the Renaissance and folklore itself. The following paper offers an overview of the history of much of the research and scholarship concerning the figure of the king in European folklore (particularly the folklore traditions of Central Europe), followed by a discussion of the historical layers of inter-ethnic (international) Matthias folklore.

Predicting geometrid moth diversity in the Heart of Borneo

. 1. Comprehensive maps of regional biodiversity are so far lacking for tropical insects. However, such data would be relevant to guide implementations of conservation areas. Using geometrid moths of Borneo as a case study, we show how insect biodiversity data can be made available for regional conservation planning. 2. We used a predictive modelling approach to a large data set on local geometrid moth samples from Borneo. We explained substantial amounts of data variance for response variables, such as local diversity, diversity of endemics, and assemblage uniqueness with predictor variables, such as precipitation, temperature, elevation and forest disturbance. We extrapolated our model to gridded data of environmental conditions across the island. 3. We retrieved highly intuitive maps of the various aspects of biodiversity. We calculated a consensus map of conservation priorities from mean values of our predictions for the various biodiversity aspects. Using a classification framework based on means and standard deviations of grid cell values, we defined ca. 17% of Borneo’s area as having high, and ca. 5% as having very high priority. Most of these were situated in the adjoining highland areas of Sarawak, Sabah and East Kalimantan. We suggest priorities for future work. 4. With this study, we exemplify how spatially scattered field data on invertebrates can be utilised for research and conservation. Furthermore, we provide information that may help guide the implementation of a proposed international nature reserve, the Heart of Borneo initiative. Model output is available in Geographic Information System-compatible format.

For the last time!

This will be my last Editorial for ANZJOG. Four years seem to have gone very quickly, but I can look back over this time with a great deal of satisfaction. As I foreshadowed at the end of the last Editorial, the Impact Factor (IF) has risen again to 1.316 and the journal has also increased its ranking to 46 of 69. This is a great achievement given the nature of our journal and the types of articles that we publish, focussing very much on general O&G with clinical research being at the forefront. Impact factors are calculated based on the numbers of citations over the last year for articles published in the two previous years. In some branches of medicine, there is often very rapid translation into numerous citations. Also, with some highly specialised journals, there is a large amount of ‘self-citing’ as the field is very narrow and a much higher likelihood that a related article will cite one previously published. A general journal will sometimes publish articles that will be cited for many years into the future, but which will not be taken into account when the IF is calculated. We do still have some way to go to reach the average IF of Wiley-Blackwell’s journals, which currently stands at 2.05. The annual report for ANZJOG tells us that last year we published 162 articles (including Case Reports and Letters) out of well over 500 submitted, which represents an acceptance rate of about 28%. There were over 86 000 full text downloads of articles, and over 459 000 abstracts were accessed! These articles came from 29 different countries, reflecting the truly international nature of ANZJOG. Australian & New Zealand authors contributed 108 articles (66.5%). There has been a significant shift in the time that I have been in this position. When I started, it was proving quite hard to fill each issue with publishable material. Now, it is getting much easier and in some cases, the time to publication is longer than I would like. Unfortunately, this means that we do now have to reject many articles that are of a publishable standard as a result of lack of space. Contrary to a popular view that I have heard expressed from many quarters, we do not have any publication bias towards local material, nor should we. All articles are considered on their merits regardless of where they originate, and from which professional group they have come. I have chosen another article myself for this issue. It is the turn of the first decade of this century and I have selected one from right at the beginning of the decade. One of the co-authors is Caroline Crowther from Adelaide who remains one of our most prolific O&G academics with a truly international profile. The article is not one which changed practice, but is certainly of important historical interest as it reflects the views of the Fellowship on screening for group B streptococcus (GBS) at that time. This survey shows that the Fellowship was almost split down the middle in favour of either screening or a ‘treat by risk factors’ approach. Even today, despite two very definite College statements, it is evident that the screening approach is not by any means universal, and in some cases, treatment does not follow in the face of risk factors. The problem of what to do about GBS remains one of the vexed questions in modern obstetrics. Finally, I thank all the people who have helped to make this venture a success. My Editorial Board (past and present) are invaluable and I thank them personally for all their hard work. The staff of College House and those at Wiley-Blackwell who turn my decisions into published material have all been wonderful. Finally, I thank all the reviewers who do this as a ‘labour of love’. We have a very small pool to select from and I am conscious that I am often asking people who are already over-committed to take on just one more thing! Your work is very much appreciated and I hope that all of you will continue to support our new Editor-in-Chief, Professor Jan Dickinson, to whom I wish every success in her new role.

Threats of MANPADS and Its Counter-Measures

The International air transportation industry provides a vital communication link which brings prosperity to many states in our modern age. This invaluable link has been threatened by terrorism. Airlines have been one of the most attractive targets in the eyes of terrorists for several reasons, including particularly the international and symbolic nature of aviation, and the potential of multi-governmental involvement which can inevitably generate wide publicity. Terrorist attacks against civil aviation have been committed since the earliest days of civil aviation history. The first attack against civil aircraft dates back to the early 1930s. Since then, aircraft hijacking and other forms of attack against air transport operations have become one of the most serious challenges to the safety of flying. In recent years, a new form of threats against civil aviation has appeared. Man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) in the hands of criminals, terrorists, and other non-state actors pose a serious potential threat to passenger air travel, the commercial aviation industry, and military aircraft around the world. The purpose of this study is to provide some countermeasures against such attacks. In order to foster a better understanding of the problem, an introduction of MANPADS and a brief history of attacks using MANPADS are presented. It also examines the level of threats, trends of attacks using MANPADS and the possible countermeasures to be taken by the international community.

Evolutionary developmental biology: its concepts and history with a focus on Russian and German contributions

Evolutionary theory has been likened to a "universal acid" (Dennett 1995) that eats its way into more and more areas of science. Recently, developmental biology has been infused by evolutionary concepts and perspectives, and a new field of research--evolutionary developmental biology--has been created and is often called EvoDevo for short. However, this is not the first attempt to make a synthesis between these two areas of biology. In contrast, beginning right after the publication of Darwin's Origin in 1859, Ernst Haeckel formulated his biogenetic law in 1872, famously stating that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Haeckel was in his turn influenced by pre-Darwinian thinkers such as Karl Ernst von Baer, who had noted that earlier developmental stages show similarities not seen in the adults. In this review, written for an audience of non-specialists, we first give an overview of the history of EvoDevo, especially the tradition emanating from Haeckel and other comparative embryologists and morphologists, which has often been neglected in discussions about the history of EvoDevo and evolutionary biology. Here we emphasize contributions from Russian and German scientists to compensate for the Anglo-American bias in the literature. In Germany, the direct influence of Ernst Haeckel was felt particularly in Jena, where he spent his entire career as a professor, and we give an overview of the "Jena school" of evolutionary morphology, with protagonists such as Oscar Hertwig, Ludwig Plate, and Victor Franz, who all developed ideas that we would nowadays think of as belonging to EvoDevo. Franz ideas about "biometabolic modi" are similar to those of a Russian comparative morphologist that visited Jena repeatedly, A. N. Sewertzoff, who made important contributions to what we now call heterochrony research--heterochrony meaning changes in the relative timing of developmental events. His student I. I. Schmalhausen became an important contributor to the synthetic theory of evolution in Russia and is only partly known outside of the Russian-reading world because only one of his many books was translated into English early on. He made many important contributions to evolutionary theory and we point out the important parallels between Schmalhausen's ideas (stabilizing selection, autonomization) and C. H. Waddington's (canalization, genetic assimilation). This is one of the many parallels that have contributed to an increased appreciation of the internationality of progress in evolutionary thinking in the first half of the twentieth century. A direct link between German and Russian evolutionary biology is provided by N. V. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, whose work on, e.g., fly genetics in Berlin is a crucial part of the history of evo-devo. To emphasize the international nature of heterochrony research as predecessor to the modern era of EvoDevo, we include Sir G. R. de Beer's work in the UK. This historical part is followed by a short review of the discovery and importance of homeobox genes and of some of the major concepts that form the core of modern EvoDevo, such as modularity, constraints, and evolutionary novelties. Major trends in contemporary EvoDevo are then outlined, such as increased use of genomics and molecular genetics, computational and bioinformatics approaches, ecological developmental biology (eco-devo), and phylogenetically informed comparative embryology. Based on our survey, we end the review with an outlook on future trends and important issues in EvoDevo.

The financial crisis and the gathering of political intelligence: A cross-country comparison of SMEs in France, Sweden and the UK

This article reports the findings of a study that compared cross-national differences in how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) monitored political responses to the economic and financial crisis of 2007–2009. Original, empirical data collected through an online survey of 206 small business managers in France, Sweden and the UK were analysed to explore the extent that they monitored policy responses to the crisis, their motivations for doing so, and the sources of information they used for political intelligence gathering purposes. The findings show that the monitoring of political initiatives by SMEs in response to the recession varied in accordance with the extent to which their countries are affected by the recession. Also, small business managers on the whole considered it more important, despite the international nature of the crisis, to monitor political responses in national rather than supranational political settings. Contrary to our expectations, we found that SMEs across all three countries drew on similarly wide sources of information when monitoring policy responses to the crisis. Also surprising was the finding that SME managers in the UK relied heavily on official government sources when gathering intelligence on attempts to alleviate the recession’s effects.

Internationalization and organizational resources of Chinese firms

PurposeThe internationalization of Chinese firms has been gaining importance in recent years. Informed by Dunning's eclectic paradigm, this paper examines the factors leading to the “going international” decisions of Chinese firms in the very early days of the “go global” call, before the central government offered substantial support.Design/methodology/approachIt is suggested that two types of organizational factors are relevant to these decisions: the firm's management capability and core competencies. A survey of data of chief executives from over 3,000 firms in the year 2000 was analyzed.FindingsEmpirical results indicate that different resources endowments have different relationships with internationalization decisions. The intention of going international is affected by organizational competencies of R&D and manufacturing. Two capabilities (production and sales, and operation and finance) have significant impacts on outward direct investment, while manufacturing and marketing competencies have positive effects on exports, together with production capability. In addition, manufacturing competencies also have a negative effect on the acquisition and use of international capital.Originality/valueBy using firm‐level data collected in China, a better understanding of the nature of internationalization and the foreign direct investment characteristics of firms has been obtained. The empirical results show that the impacts of the organizational resources are different for different internationalization decisions, and the effects of core competencies of a firm vary across different paths of internationalization.

Reasons and Processes Leading to the Erosion of Crop Genetic Diversity in Mountainous Regions of Georgia

Agriculture has a long history in Georgia; it has led to a great variety of ancient crops. However, this diversity is under threat for many reasons. First, introduced crops have caused a loss of traditional cultivars, because the introduced crops are preferred due to their higher yield. Moreover, agricultural machines such as forage and grain combine harvesters imported to Georgia are constructed for widely distributed, imported crops and cannot be used to harvest local cultivars. Until recently, genetic erosion of ancient crop varieties was not a problem in the mountain areas of Georgia, which until the 1990s constituted a depository of local crop varieties of wheat, barley, rye, oat, common millet, traditional legumes, vegetables, herbs, and spice plants with specific varieties adapted to mountain conditions. These mountain areas worked as a depository because local mountain communities preserved their traditional ways of life and socioeconomic structures. Their traditional agricultural equipment, used on a large scale until the 1990s, still allows them to maintain areas under cultivation (with grain or other crops) on steep slopes and at high elevations where modern tractors cannot be used. Moreover, some old landraces of wheat and barley are still being used to prepare bread and beer for religious rituals. Currently, many endemic and native representatives of crop plants are in danger of extinction. International nature conservation institutions and Georgian scientific and nongovernmental organizations have developed plans to preserve the genetic resources of local cultivars.

International conservation ‘volunteering’ and the geographies of global environmental citizenship

Growing numbers of fee-paying ‘volunteers’ leave the UK each year to work on international nature conservation projects. Powerful advocates argue that such volunteering offers active global environmental citizens the opportunity to make a difference, delivering public services through a politically and economically appealing model of social enterprise. This paper reviews the geographies of citizenship performed in international conservation volunteering from the UK to critically examine these claims. It draws on and develops three conceptual approaches from political geography. First, it examines international conservation volunteering as a mode of cosmopolitan global environmental citizenship, guided by the universal framework of natural science across a flat earth of difference making opportunities. Second, it reviews the material reality of conservation volunteering as an illustration of the neoliberal and neo-colonial tendencies within mainstream global environmentalism. Third, it moves beyond these familiar theoretical tropes to present a more-than-human account of international conservation volunteering from the UK. This attends to the material assemblages of human and nonhuman bodies, practices and affects caught up in within these expressions of citizenship. In conclusion the paper critically compares the different materialisations of citizenship offered by these approaches. It finds that the geographies of citizenship performed within the sector are neither ‘global’ or ‘environmental’, nor do they comprise modes of citizenship that embody planetary humanism or panoptic rationalism. Instead, the modes, subjects and spatialities of citizenship performed here are asymmetric, affective and more-than-human. This has important implications for the scope, practices and future of international environmental politics and for the emerging sub-discipline of the geographies of citizenship.

‘If we know about culture it will be easier to work with one another’: developing skills for handling corporate meetings with multinational participation

The current international nature of socio-economic activities is reshaping workplace settings and creating the need for large numbers of employees to perform successful communicative acts with a wider range of interactants than in the past, often using a language other than their mother tongue. Against this backdrop much emphasis has been placed on the need for training current and future employees in order to develop their work-related communication skills. In this context, the paper reports on an ongoing study into workplace discourse and its implications for pedagogic practice. I discuss here operationalisations of the concept of culture in pedagogic materials, and focus on the meeting event as presented through texts published in some widely used Business English textbooks in the UK. Special attention is paid to the underlying assumptions about culture and preferred norms for handling meetings which feature multinational participation – as presented by the textbooks but also in relevant academic literature. The discussion also draws on data from multinational companies in Europe. The analysis shows that textbooks often take a macro-level view of culture and treat it as an entity with distinct boundaries. This paper closes by making a case for sociolinguistic research findings to feed back into the language classroom to complement language for specific purposes textbooks for further developing learners' socio-pragmatic skills. La caractère international des activités socio-économiques actuelles transforme la configuration du lieu de travail et entraîne ainsi le besoin d'un nombre important d'employés d'accomplir des actes communicatifs avec une palette d'interlocuteurs de plus en plus variée, et ce dans une langue souvent autre que leur langue maternelle. Sur cette toile de fond, l'emphase a été placée sur la nécessité de former les employés actuels et futurs afin de développer leurs compétences en matière de linguistique et de communication. C'est dans ce contexte que cet article établit le compte-rendu d'une étude en cours sur le discours dans le lieu de travail et sur les conséquences de celui-ci sur les pratiques pédagogiques. J'examine ici les ‘opérationalisations’ du concept de culture dans les matériels pédagogiques et me concentre sur l’évènement de la réunion telle qu'elle est présentée dans les textes publiés dans des manuels de l'Anglais des Affaires couramment utilisés au Royaume-Uni. Une attention particulière est portée aux hypothèses concernant la culture et les normes privilégiées afin de gérer les réunions à caractère multinational – comme le présentent les manuels mais également les travaux universitaires sur le sujet. La discussion repose également sur des données provenant de compagnies multinationales en Europe. L'analyse montre que le point de vue des manuels sur la culture est souvent statique et traite celle-ci comme une ‘unité’ homogène avec des limites bien définies. Cet article se conclut en défendant que les résultats des recherches sociolinguistiques pourraient être utiles dans les cours de langues afin de compléter les manuels de Langue Etrangère Appliquée dans le but de mieux développer les compétences socio-pragmatiques des étudiants.

Resolving the Financial Crisis: Are We Heeding the Lessons from the Nordics?

How does the management and resolution of the current crisis compare with the response of the Nordic countries in the early 1990s, widely regarded as exemplary? We argue that, while intervention has been prompter, the measures taken so far remain less comprehensive and in-depth. In particular, the cleansing of balance sheets has proceeded more slowly, and less attention has been paid to reducing excess capacity and avoiding competitive distortions. In general, policymakers have given higher priority to sustaining aggregate demand in the short term than to encouraging adjustment in the financial sector and containing moral hazard. We argue that three factors largely explain this outcome: the more international nature of the crisis; the complexity of the instruments involved; and, hardly appreciated so far, the effect of accounting practices on the dynamics of the events, reflecting in particular the prominent role of fair value accounting (and mark to market losses) in relation to amortised cost accounting for loan books. There is a risk that the policies followed so far may delay the establishment of the basis for a sustainably profitable and less risk-prone financial sector.

Effectiveness of Predator Removal for Enhancing Bird Populations

Predation pressure on vulnerable bird species has made predator control an important issue for international nature conservation. Predator removal by culling or translocation is controversial, expensive, and time-consuming, and results are often temporary. Thus, it is important to assess its effectiveness from all available evidence. We used explicit systematic review methodology to determine the impact of predator removal on four measurable responses in birds: breeding performance (hatching success and fledging success) and population size (breeding and postbreeding). We used meta-analysis to summarize results from 83 predator removal studies from six continents. We also investigated whether characteristics of the prey, predator species, location, and study methodology explained heterogeneity in effect sizes. Removing predators increased hatching success, fledging success, and breeding populations. Removing all predator species achieved a significantly larger increase in breeding population than removing only a subset. Postbreeding population size was not improved on islands, or overall, but did increase on mainlands. Heterogeneity in effect sizes for the four population parameters was not explained by whether predators were native or introduced; prey were declining, migratory, or game species; or by the study methodology. Effect sizes for fledging success were smaller for ground-nesting birds than those that nest elsewhere, but the difference was not significant. We conclude that current evidence indicates that predator removal is an effective strategy for the conservation of vulnerable bird populations. Nevertheless, the ethical and practical problems associated with predator removal may lead managers to favor alternative, nonlethal solutions. Research is needed to provide and synthesize data to determine whether these are effective management practices for future policies on bird conservation.

How ecopreneurs’ green values affect their international engagement in supply chain management

Ecopreneurs are emerging as a new type of entrepreneur who are worthy of much greater consideration than has been given to date. The aim of this paper was to explore how a group of 14 New Zealand ecopreneurs engage with supply chain management issues of an international nature—namely importing, manufacturing and exporting. A case study method was used to collect data from face-to-face semi-structured interviews with the ecopreneurs and a wide range of secondary data such as industry reports, the company’s web sites and items from the media. On the supply side, ecopreneurs considered environmental and social costs of procuring from other countries. However, they had little power to influence supplier practices. Ecopreneurs also wanted to manufacture locally regardless of cost. Likewise, on the demand side, ecopreneurs assessed the environmental costs of exporting and were more in favour of selling locally due to their green values. The study found that various dilemmas of an environmental and social nature emerge as being important in the decisions and practices that ecopreneurs undertake with respect to managing their supply chain internationally. These dilemmas facing New Zealand ecopreneurs may offer a glimpse into future realities for other countries and businesses. We believe that these ecopreneurs are leading the way to a new frontier where environmental issues are likely to become increasingly unavoidable and should be considered in supply chain management. This exploratory research raises a number of important questions that require further research in order to more fully understand their implications for ecopreneurs.

The banking and financial crisis in the UK: what is real and what is behavioural?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reflect on the recent banking and financial crisis in the UK. It discusses the triggers of the crisis from a UK perspective and then examines the immediate reactions in the form of short‐term policies and concludes with a discussion on longer‐term policies.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper that argues that some of the triggers of the crisis are real and some are behavioural.FindingsThe crisis has its roots in the sub‐prime crisis of the USA with spillover effects for the UK due to its well‐developed and international financial sector. The systemic environment of high leverage in the financial, corporate and household sectors, the international nature of finance, and the opacity in banks' balance sheets are real triggers. In contrast, the underestimation of risks by almost all agents in the economy is behavioural.Practical implicationsThe paper argues that some of the conditions that led to the crisis will not change and should now be incorporated in new banking regulations. This is particularly true in the case of behavioural factors. Optimism, greed, herding and underestimation of low‐probability high‐impact events, are all parts of human nature. Human nature will not change. Thus, it need better regulations.Social implicationsLess privileged groups, such as the poor, the uneducated, and the elderly, need better regulation to make them less vulnerable not only to others' biases but also to their own biases.Originality/valueThe paper is original in discussing behavioural side of the crisis along with the real side of it.