Arrow views risk as more negative than positive, describing how risk and uncertainties in the marketplace can undermine economic policy or managerial decisions. The approach to risk among economists has been turned upside down during the past two decades. In the past, the focus was upon entrepreneurial or commercial risk - the risk taken by calculating businessmen as personifications of the essential dynamic of capitalism. This is the sort of risk whose outcome can be influenced by the actions of the people involved. By contrast, most discussion today is about 'pure risk' - the type of risk you can do nothing to prevent.
Pure risk is deemed to be outside anybody's control, happening by accident or misfortune.
The best you can do about this kind of risk is to take out insurance. Risk used to be seen as a justification for profits. Going into business you ran the risk of losing everything, so you deserved your profit as a return on your risk-taking. Today risk has been redefined as a barrier to making profits. Poor economic performance and lower profitability are put down to the riskier world we inhabit.