Optimal insurance with belief heterogeneity and incentive compatibility

People may evaluate risk differently in the insurance market. Motivated by this, we examine an optimal insurance problem allowing the insured and the insurer to have heterogeneous beliefs about loss distribution. To reduce ex post moral hazard, we follow Huberman et al. (1983) to assume that alternative insurance contracts satisfy the principle of indemnity and the incentive-compatible constraint. Under the assumption that the insurance premium is calculated by the expected value principle, we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for an optimal insurance solution and provide a practical scheme to improve any suboptimal insurance strategy under an arbitrary form of belief heterogeneity. By virtue of this condition, we explore qualitative properties of optimal solutions, and derive optimal insurance contracts explicitly for some interesting forms of belief heterogeneity. As a byproduct of this investigation, we find that Theorem 3.6 of Young (1999) is not completely true.     

Optimal consumption–investment and life-insurance purchase strategy for couples with correlated lifetimes

This paper presents a technique to solve the problem where a couple aims to optimize their consumption, investment, and life-insurance purchasing strategies, thereby maximizing their family objective until retirement. Assumed correlated lifetimes of the two wage earners are modeled by using both the copula and common-shock models. Subsequently, closed-form solutions are obtained for determination of the optimal strategies in both the copula and a special case of the common-shock models. As observed, use of the copula model is more advantageous in its provision of closed-form strategies and ability to distinguish mortality impacts. The optimization problem considered herein is investigated under a Markovian setting and solved using the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation. Numerical examples are also provided to illustrate the utility of the proposed optimization strategy.     

论保险投资新政对寿险公司投资收益的影响

近年来,保险监管部门颁布了多项保险投资新政,保险资金运用上的限制得到了放松.保险投资新政的实施对寿险公司投资收益有着怎样的影响呢?运用双重差分模型(DID模型),定量估计了保险投资新政实施前后的寿险公司投资收益的具体变化,并分析了何种因素对寿险公司的投资收益有显著影响.研究发现,保险投资新政对寿险公司的总投资收益率的提高有着积极的影响,保险投资新政对不同规模的寿险公司投资收益的影响存在着差异,仅考虑政策的调整因素,大型寿险公司的总投资收益率增量超过中小型寿险公司1.13%,综合考虑其它指标的影响后,其总投资收益率增量仍然超过中小型寿险公司0.097%.实证结果为保险监管部门的政策实施以及寿险公司的经营提供了新思路.     

P2P保险的道德风险问题研究

伴随信息产业的快速发展和互联网保险的广泛运用,近几年来国际上出现了一种新型保险模式――P2P保险(Peer to Peer Insurance)。该模式基于互联网,通过聚集若干风险类型相似的投保人组建风险共担互助小组,风险互助小组成员间一般是亲戚、朋友等熟人关系。P2P保险形成的相互监督机制和声誉机制,可以较好地解决传统保险市场中存在的道德风险问题。本文利用经济学中的比较静态分析方法,研究了P2P保险的道德风险问题,并从理论上证明了在P2P保险模式下,投保人会倾向于更加努力防范风险以降低出险概率,道德风险问题可以得到有效缓解。     

均值-方差准则下的多期最优保险投资(英文)

近年来,最优保险投资问题吸引了越来越多的注意。一般这个问题是在连续时间框架下来研究的。本文针对这一问题建立离散时间的最优控制模型。应用动态规划原理求解模型对应的近似问题,得到了最优投资策略和投资有效边界的解析表达形式。本文得到的最优投资策略和投资有效边界均依赖于承保参数。通过数值例子分析了承保参数对最优投资策略和有效边界的影响。     

Use of Luminescence Spectroscopy in Clinical and Biological Analysis

Analysis of a sample of clinical or biological origin often requires assay procedures that are rapid, sensitive, selective, and permit the use of microsamples. These constraints have prompted the clinical chemist and analytical biochemist to use many modern tools of the analytical chemist—including atomic absorption spectroscopy, gas chromatography, and luminescence spectroscopy. This review considers the impact of molecular luminescence spectroscopy (fluorescence and phosphorescence) in the analysis of samples of clinical and biological interest. We attempt to outline those procedures and applications of luminescence spectroscopy which are well-established and also consider the promising new developments which should permit wide levels of acceptance in the near future.     

中国农业科技进步贡献率的测度及原因分析 ——基于CD生产函数

基于柯布-道格拉斯生产函数,采用1985-2011年农业相关数据测算我国农业全要素增长贡献率,最终测算我国农业科技进步贡献率,并分析我国农业科技进步贡献率长期较低的深层次原因,针对这些原因,提出相应解决之策,以提高我国农业科技进步对农业生产的贡献程度,促进我国传统农业快速转向现代农业.     

Competition among non-life insurers under solvency constraints: A game-theoretic approach

We formulate a noncooperative game to model competition for policyholders among non-life insurance companies, taking into account market premium, solvency level, market share and underwriting results. We study Nash equilibria and Stackelberg equilibria for the premium levels, and give numerical illustrations.     

A multiperiod model for estimating the cost of deposit insurance under the Basel III minimum capital requirement

Under the Basel III regime, a commercial bank is considered adequately capitalized if it maintains a ratio of capital to total risk-weighted assets or capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of at least 8%. We model a commercial bank that complies with Basel III's minimum capital requirement on an interval $[0,T]$ for $T>0$. The bank model is achieved via a specific rate of capital influx that fixes the bank's CAR at the minimum prescribed level of 8%. On the basis of this capital influx rate, we derive models for the bank's asset portfolio and capital dynamics required for maintaining the CAR at the minimum prescribed level. For the aforementioned bank, we further study a deposit insurance (DI) pricing problem with a coverage horizon equal to $T$ years. More specifically, we employ a multiperiod DI pricing model to approximate the cost of DI for the bank on the interval $[0,T]$, where the constant (minimum) CAR is maintained. We study the behaviours of the models leading to the constant (minimum) CAR, and the behaviour of the DI premium estimate by means of numerical simulations. In the simulation study pertaining to the DI premium estimate specifically, we determine the effects of changes in the bank's initial leverage level (deposit-to-asset ratio), the DI coverage horizon, and the volatility of the asset portfolio on the DI premium estimate.     

A health insurance pricing model based on prevalence rates: Application to critical illness insurance

The Italian health insurance market is currently undersized. The paucity of assured data and the discontinuous statistical surveys carried out by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) represent one of the main obstacles to the insurance market development. The paper sets forth a parametric model to estimate technical basis for health insurance policies when data are limited and only aggregated information on mortality and morbidity is available. The probabilistic framework is based on a multiple state continuous and time inhomogeneous Markov model. We provide an estimate of transition intensities from the healthy state to the sickness state when only prevalence rates of sickness are available, according to an extension and modification of the methodology proposed in Olivieri (1996) for Long Term Care insurance. We assume that mortality intensity of both healthy and sick lives is modelled by two independent Gompertz–Makeham models.