Another similarity between Japan's current crisis and the recent financial crisis is that the false risk assessment was largely due to the asymmetric distribution of social welfare and individual cost implied by more effective risk mitigation. Both Lehman Brothers and Tokyo Electric Power Company were able to increase their profits as long as the risk they were willing to accept did not materialize. Their management certainly benefited as long as everything went well. When crisis hit, however, the cost of the meltdown exceeded the companies' equity and thus had to be socialized.

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As in finance, ensuring that the originator of a risk pays the cost seems to be the most sensible approach. If each nuclear-power plant was obliged to insure against the risk that it imposes on society (within and outside the country of its location), it would face the true economic cost of its activities.