This book offers fresh insights into the economic development and financial markets of Southeastern and Central European countries. The first part analyses macroeconomic trends and monetary policy issues, while the second part explores the development of financial and insurance markets. With contributions covering topics such as regional and income inequalities, economic embeddedness, industrial competitiveness, entrepreneurship, financial integration, insurance markets, and other socio-economic aspects, it appeals to scholars in the field of economics and finance interested in the further economic development of the Balkans and Eastern European countries as well as to professionals in the financial and insurance sectors.

As of early 2022, seven of the ten largest firms in the world by market capitalization had been funded through various types of entrepreneurial finance. This handbook provides an up-to-date survey of what we know about this significant phenomenon in all its forms, and where our knowledge about it needs to head from here. The handbook embraces a wide range of established and emerging academic and practitioner voices across the globe to explore the theoretical and practical flux and tension in the field. Until recently, most studies have taken a supply side perspective, focusing on the perspective of those who provide funding to new ventures. This book takes a different, demand side perspective, beginning with the entrepreneur and gradually broadening our view to include close by and then more distant funding sources. Following this approach, it is organized into four parts detailing the individual level (founders' resources, bricolage and bootstrapping, effectuation and portfolio entrepreneurship); the inner circle (informal financing, business groups, incubators and accelerators); the wider world (formal debt, microfinance, venture capital, corporate venture capital, business angels, government funding and family offices); and emerging perspectives (non-Western perspectives, gender, indigenous perspectives, post-conflict and disaster zones and ethics). The introduction considers the general state of the field, while the conclusion takes on additional topics relevant to entrepreneurial finance, such as decentralized finance, big data, behavioral economics, financial innovation and COVID-19, as well as possible ways in which entrepreneurial finance can have a greater impact on other disciplines. This handbook will be a core reference work for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers seeking an up-to-date academic survey of entrepreneurial finance. It can also be used as a primary text in Ph.D. seminars in entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, and finance. Instructors in Master's level courses in entrepreneurial finance and venture capital will also find the book of benefit.

This Volume of the AIDA Europe Research Series on Insurance Law and Regulation explores the key trends in InsurTech and the potential legal and regulatory issues that accompany them. There is a proliferation of ideas and concepts within InsurTech that will fundamentally change the market in the next few years. These innovations have the potential to change the way the insurance industry works and alter the relationships between customers and insurers, resulting in insurance products that are more closely aligned to individual preferences and priced more appropriately to the risk. Increasing use of technology in the insurance sector is having both a disruptive and transformative impact on areas including product development, distribution, modelling, underwriting and claims and administration practice. The result is a new industry, known as InsurTech. But while the insurance market looks to technology for greater efficiency, regulators are beginning to raise concerns about managing potential risks. The first part of the book examines technological innovations relevant for insurance, such as FinTech, InsurTech, Sharing Economy, and the Internet of Things. The second part then gathers contributions on insurance contract law in a digitalized world, while the third part focuses on cyber insurance and robots. Last but not least, the fourth part of the book discusses legal and ethical questions regarding autonomous vehicles and transportation, including the shipping industry, as well as their impact on the insurance sector and civil liability. Written by legal scholars and practitioners, the book offers international, comparative and European perspectives. The Chapters "FinTech, InsurTech and the Regulators" by Viktoria Chatzara, "Smart Contracts in Insurance. A Law and Futurology Perspective" by Angelo Borselli and "Room for Compulsory Product Liability Insurance in the European Union for Smart Robots?" by Aysegul Bugra are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com. All three open access chapters were funded by BIPAR.

A one-stop guide for the theories, applications, and statistical methodologies essential to operational risk Providing a complete overview of operational risk modeling and relevant insurance analytics, Fundamental Aspects of Operational Risk and Insurance Analytics: A Handbook of Operational Risk offers a systematic approach that covers the wide range of topics in this area. Written by a team of leading experts in the field, the handbook presents detailed coverage of the theories, applications, and models inherent in any discussion of the fundamentals of operational risk, with a primary focus on Basel II/III regulation, modeling dependence, estimation of risk models, and modeling the data elements. Fundamental Aspects of Operational Risk and Insurance Analytics: A Handbook of Operational Risk begins with coverage on the four data elements used in operational risk framework as well as processing risk taxonomy. The book then goes further in-depth into the key topics in operational risk measurement and insurance, for example diverse methods to estimate frequency and severity models. Finally, the book ends with sections on specific topics, such as scenario analysis; multifactor modeling; and dependence modeling. A unique companion with Advances in Heavy Tailed Risk Modeling: A Handbook of Operational Risk, the handbook also features: Discussions on internal loss data and key risk indicators, which are both fundamental for developing a risk-sensitive framework Guidelines for how operational risk can be inserted into a firm's strategic decisions A model for stress tests of operational risk under the United States Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) program A valuable reference for financial engineers, quantitative analysts, risk managers, and large-scale consultancy groups advising banks on their internal systems, the handbook is also useful for academics teaching postgraduate courses on the methodology of operational risk.

While the literature on reinsurance is vast, there is currently no comprehensive treatment of the major actuarial and financial aspects of the subject. Many publications deal with specific aspects of the theory without putting them into a proper perspective. Reinsurance: Actuarial and Statistical Aspects treats the topic differently. The theories throughout the book are illustrated with real data from major reinsurance companies from around the world. An extensive bibliography also provides readers with leads for further study.

Government subsidized crop insurance has been used by a number of developed countries as a mechanism to reduce farm income instability by reducing yield risks. This book provides an in-depth analysis and evaluation of government provided crop insurance in developed countries. The book is organized into three sections: Part one presents background material on crop insurance programs in the U.S., Canada and selected other countries. Part two provides some analytical models of multiple peril crop insurance which suggest the possibility of modification of design which could improve performance and which explores theoretical linkages between crop insurance decisions and other producer decisions previously not analyzed. The main part of the book is Part three, where the results of a series of empirical studies using databases particularly designed to answer crop insurance questions are presented. This part of the book tests a number of the hypotheses which were raised in Parts one and two regarding reasons for the view widely held by economists that crop insurance has not functioned well.

From the time of Elizabeth I in the second half of the sixteenth century, London has dominated the marine insurance markets. This led the English to develop a law of marine insurance as well: a Chamber of Assurances was established in England in 1575, and the law of marine insurance, rooted in custom, developed through the cases decided by the courts.

In the United States, marine insurance underwriting began in the eighteenth century, although British firms continued to dominate. The American law of marine insurance took its cue from English law; English legal precedents were cited routinely in American courts. For fifty years after the English law was codified in the Marine Insurance Act 1906 (MIA), it could truly be said that there was a unified Anglo-American law of marine insurance, and that English law was part of the "general maritime law" of the United States.

The unity of the Anglo-American law, which was so beneficial to the functioning of the international marine insurance industry, was broken abruptly in 1955 by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Wilburn Boat v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., a case that created controversies over the uniformity of the law, which have yet to subside. The purpose of this work is to explore the extent of the breakdown of the uniformity of the law and to point to its cure.

This book reviews some of the most recent developments in neural networks, with a focus on applications in actuarial sciences and finance. It simultaneously introduces the relevant tools for developing and analyzing neural networks, in a style that is mathematically rigorous yet accessible. Artificial intelligence and neural networks offer a powerful alternative to statistical methods for analyzing data. Various topics are covered from feed-forward networks to deep learning, such as Bayesian learning, boosting methods and Long Short Term Memory models. All methods are applied to claims, mortality or time-series forecasting. Requiring only a basic knowledge of statistics, this book is written for masters students in the actuarial sciences and for actuaries wishing to update their skills in machine learning. This is the third of three volumes entitled Effective Statistical Learning Methods for Actuaries. Written by actuaries for actuaries, this series offers a comprehensive overview of insurance data analytics with applications to P&C, life and health insurance. Although closely related to the other two volumes, this volume can be read independently.

This volume gathers selected peer-reviewed papers presented at the international conference "MAF 2016 - Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance", held in Paris (France) at the Universite Paris-Dauphine from March 30 to April 1, 2016. The contributions highlight new ideas on mathematical and statistical methods in actuarial sciences and finance. The cooperation between mathematicians and statisticians working in insurance and finance is a very fruitful field, one that yields unique theoretical models and practical applications, as well as new insights in the discussion of problems of national and international interest. This volume is addressed to academicians, researchers, Ph.D. students and professionals.

Now in its fifth edition, this book offers a detailed yet concise introduction to the growing field of statistical applications in finance. The reader will learn the basic methods for evaluating option contracts, analyzing financial time series, selecting portfolios and managing risks based on realistic assumptions about market behavior. The focus is both on the fundamentals of mathematical finance and financial time series analysis, and on applications to specific problems concerning financial markets, thus making the book the ideal basis for lectures, seminars and crash courses on the topic. All numerical calculations are transparent and reproducible using quantlets. For this new edition the book has been updated and extensively revised and now includes several new aspects such as neural networks, deep learning, and crypto-currencies. Both R and Matlab code, together with the data, can be downloaded from the book's product page and the Quantlet platform. The Quantlet platform quantlet.de, quantlet.com, quantlet.org is an integrated QuantNet environment consisting of different types of statistics-related documents and program codes. Its goal is to promote reproducibility and offer a platform for sharing validated knowledge native to the social web. QuantNet and the corresponding Data-Driven Documents-based visualization allow readers to reproduce the tables, pictures and calculations inside this Springer book. "This book provides an excellent introduction to the tools from probability and statistics necessary to analyze financial data. Clearly written and accessible, it will be very useful to students and practitioners alike." Yacine Ait-Sahalia, Otto Hack 1903 Professor of Finance and Economics, Princeton University

A Business Week, New York Times Business, and USA Today Bestseller

"Ambitious and readable . . . an engaging introduction to the oddsmakers, whom Bernstein regards as true humanists helping to release mankind from the choke holds of superstition and fatalism." —The New York Times

"An extraordinarily entertaining and informative book." —The Wall Street Journal

"A lively panoramic book . . . Against the Gods sets up an ambitious premise and then delivers on it." —Business Week

"Deserves to be, and surely will be, widely read." —The Economist

"[A] challenging book, one that may change forever the way people think about the world." —Worth

"No one else could have written a book of such central importance with so much charm and excitement." —Robert Heilbroner author, The Worldly Philosophers

"With his wonderful knowledge of the history and current manifestations of risk, Peter Bernstein brings us Against the Gods. Nothing like it will come out of the financial world this year or ever. I speak carefully: no one should miss it." —John Kenneth Galbraith Professor of Economics Emeritus, Harvard University

In this unique exploration of the role of risk in our society, Peter Bernstein argues that the notion of bringing risk under control is one of the central ideas that distinguishes modern times from the distant past. Against the Gods chronicles the remarkable intellectual adventure that liberated humanity from oracles and soothsayers by means of the powerful tools of risk management that are available to us today.

"An extremely readable history of risk." —Barron's

"Fascinating . . . this challenging volume will help you understand the uncertainties that every investor must face." —Money

"A singular achievement." —Times Literary Supplement

"There's a growing market for savants who can render the recondite intelligibly—witness Stephen Jay Gould (natural history), Oliver Sacks (disease), Richard Dawkins (heredity), James Gleick (physics), Paul Krugman (economics)—and Bernstein would mingle well in their company." —The Australian

This book, unique in its composition, reviews the academic empirical literature on how CDSs actually work in practice, including during distressed times of market crises. It also discusses the mechanics of single-name and index CDSs, the theoretical costs and benefits of CDSs, as well as comprehensively summarizes the empirical evidence on important aspects of these instruments of risk transfer. Full-time academics, researchers at financial institutions, and students will benefit from the dispassionate and comprehensive summary of the academic literature; they can read this book instead of identifying, collecting, and reading the hundreds of academic articles on the important subject of credit risk transfer using derivatives and benefit from the synthesis of the literature provided.

In a time before bonds, treasury notes, or central banks, there were tontines. These were schemes in which a group of investors lent money to a government, corporation, or king, similar to a modern-day loan syndicate. But unlike conventional debt, periodic interest payments were distributed only to survivors. As tontine nominees died, the income of survivors correspondingly increased. Morbid, perhaps, but this was one of the earliest forms of longevity insurance in which the pool shared the risk. Moshe A. Milevsky tells the story of the first tontine issued by the English government in 1693, known as King William's tontine, intended to finance the war against French King Louis XIV. He explains how tontines work, the financial and economic thinking behind them, as well as why they fell into disrepute. Milevsky concludes with a provocative argument that suitably modified tontines should be resurrected for twenty-first-century retirement income planning.

This work, now in a thoroughly revised second edition, presents the economic foundations of financial markets theory from a mathematically rigorous standpoint and offers a self-contained critical discussion based on empirical results. It is the only textbook on the subject to include more than two hundred exercises, with detailed solutions to selected exercises. Financial Markets Theory covers classical asset pricing theory in great detail, including utility theory, equilibrium theory, portfolio selection, mean-variance portfolio theory, CAPM, CCAPM, APT, and the Modigliani-Miller theorem. Starting from an analysis of the empirical evidence on the theory, the authors provide a discussion of the relevant literature, pointing out the main advances in classical asset pricing theory and the new approaches designed to address asset pricing puzzles and open problems (e.g., behavioral finance). Later chapters in the book contain more advanced material, including on the role of information in financial markets, non-classical preferences, noise traders and market microstructure. This textbook is aimed at graduate students in mathematical finance and financial economics, but also serves as a useful reference for practitioners working in insurance, banking, investment funds and financial consultancy. Introducing necessary tools from microeconomic theory, this book is highly accessible and completely self-contained. Advance praise for the second edition: "Financial Markets Theory is comprehensive, rigorous, and yet highly accessible. With their second edition, Barucci and Fontana have set an even higher standard!"Darrell Duffie, Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University "This comprehensive book is a great self-contained source for studying most major theoretical aspects of financial economics. What makes the book particularly useful is that it provides a lot of intuition, detailed discussions of empirical implications, a very thorough survey of the related literature, and many completely solved exercises. The second edition covers more ground and provides many more proofs, and it will be a handy addition to the library of every student or researcher in the field."Jaksa Cvitanic, Richard N. Merkin Professor of Mathematical Finance, Caltech "The second edition of Financial Markets Theory by Barucci and Fontana is a superb achievement that knits together all aspects of modern finance theory, including financial markets microstructure, in a consistent and self-contained framework. Many exercises, together with their detailed solutions, make this book indispensable for serious students in finance."Michel Crouhy, Head of Research and Development, NATIXIS

Originally published in 1938, this book presents the content of a paper read before the Insurance Institute of London by the leading actuary and statistician Sir William P. Elderton (1877-1962). The text provides an account regarding the impossibility of insurance companies giving people compensation in the event of damage from enemy military action. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in economic history, military history and the insurance industry.

This book is the first attempt to re-define objective risk. It addresses the cost of running out of capital as a generalized cost syndrome and explains how it is possible to describe this cost in such a way as to give it practical, real-life significance for personal finances, company finances and the economy as a whole. The discussion begins by presenting an intuitive and useful definition of risk: the probability of prospective capital shortfall. From this point it establishes a risk theory and expands the work of major thinkers such as Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes, and adds reserve capital as a new financial risk management tool, with an economic function that is different from savings. This book will be of interest to economists, politicians, and decision makers as well as to the general public.

This book draws readers' attention to the financial aspects of daily life at a corporation by combining a robust mathematical setting and the explanation and derivation of the most popular models of the firm. Intended for third-year undergraduate students of business finance, quantitative finance, and financial mathematics, as well as first-year postgraduate students, it is based on the twin pillars of theory and analytics, which merge in a way that makes it easy for students to understand the exact meaning of the concepts and their representation and applicability in real-world contexts. Examples are given throughout the chapters in order to clarify the most intricate aspects; where needed, there are appendices at the end of chapters, offering additional mathematical insights into specific topics. Due to the recent growth in knowledge demand in the private sector, practitioners can also profit from the book as a bridge-builder between university and industry. Lastly, the book provides useful information for managers who want to deepen their understanding of risk management and come to recognize what may have been lacking in their own systems.

In the first book of its kind, Turnbull traces the development and implementation of actuarial ideas, from the conception of Equitable Life in the mid-18th century to the start of the 21st century. This book analyses the historical development of British actuarial thought in each of its three main practice areas of life assurance, pensions and general insurance. It discusses how new actuarial approaches were developed within each practice area, and how these emerging ideas interacted with each other and were often driven by common external factors such as shocks in the economic environment, new intellectual ideas from academia and developments in technology. A broad range of historically important actuarial topics are discussed such as the development of the blueprint for the actuarial management of with-profit business; historical developments in mortality modelling methods; changes in actuarial thinking on investment strategy for life and pensions business; changing perspectives on the objectives and methods for funding Defined Benefit pensions; the application of risk theory in general insurance reserving; the adoption of risk-based reserving and the Guaranteed Annuity Option crisis at the end of the 20th century. This book also provides an historical overview of some of the most important external contributions to actuarial thinking: in particular, the first century or so of modern thinking on probability and statistics, starting in the 1650s with Pascal and Fermat; and the developments in the field of financial economics over the third quarter of the twentieth century. This book identifies where historical actuarial thought heuristically anticipated some of the fundamental ideas of modern finance, and the challenges that the profession wrestled with in reconciling these ideas with traditional actuarial methods. Actuaries have played a profoundly influential role in the management of the United Kingdom's most important long-term financial institutions over the last two hundred years. This book will be the first to chart the influence of the actuarial profession to modern day. It will prove a valuable resource for actuaries, actuarial trainees and students of actuarial science. It will also be of interest to academics and professionals in related financial fields such as accountants, statisticians, economists and investment managers.

This book adopts an international perspective to examine how the online sale of insurance challenges the insurance regulation and the insurance contract, with a focus on insurance sales, consumer protection, cyber risks and privacy, as well as dispute resolution. Today insurers, policyholders, intermediaries and regulators interact in an increasingly online world with profound implications for what has up to now been a traditionally operating industry. While the growing threats to consumer and business data from cyber attacks constitute major sources of risk for insurers, at the same time cyber insurance has become the fastest growing commercial insurance product in many jurisdictions. Scholars and practitioners from Europe, the United States and Asia review these topics from the viewpoints of insurers, policyholders and insurance intermediaries. In some cases, existing insurance regulations appear readily adaptable to the online world, such as prohibitions on deceptive marketing of insurance products and unfair commercial practices, which can be applied to advertising through social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as to traditional written material. In other areas, current regulatory and business practices are proving to be inadequate to the task and new ones are emerging. For example, the insurance industry and insurance supervisors are exploring how to review, utilize, profit from and regulate the explosive growth of data mining and predictive analytics ("big data"), which threaten long-standing privacy protection and insurance risk classification laws. This book's ambitious international scope matches its topics. The online insurance market is cross-territorial and cross-jurisdictional with insurers often operating internationally and as part of larger financial-services holding companies. The authors' exploration of these issues from the vantage points of some of the world's largest insurance markets - the U.S., Europe and Japan - provides a comparative framework, which is necessary for the understanding of online insurance.

This volume aims to discuss the current research, theory, methodology and applications of macropreudential regulation and policy for the Islamic financial industry. Published in cooperation with the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), this book features contributions from a workshop presented in collaboration with the University College of Bahrain (UCB) in Manama, Bahrain, aimed to bring together experts in Islamic banking and regulation and financial economics. This resulting book sheds light on how macroprudential policy may be implemented in the Islamic financial system, and indicates current challenges and their effects on economic growth, financial stability and monetary regulation. Macroprudential policy is increasingly seen as a way of dealing with the different dimensions of systemic risk. But many central banks, bank supervisors and regulators have limited experience with macroprudential tools, particularly in the Islamic financial industry. Given the complementarities between monetary policy and financial stability, it appears that central banks would always play an important role in macroprudential policy. But how should macroprudential policy best interact with monetary policy? It is becoming more pressing for the central banks to conduct monetary policy in which its conventional banking system operates side by side with Islamic banking system. This question has received increasing attention in the research literature but there is much we still need to learn. This is why new insights from research on macroprudential policy - which has gained important impetus in recent years - are so valuable. Featuring contributions on topics such as macroprudential regulation, policy, tools and instruments; governance, systematic risk, monetary policy, and bank leverage, the editors provide a collection of comprehensive research covering the most important issues on macroprudential policy and regulation for the Islamic financial industry. This volume is expected to be a significant contribution to the literature in the field of Islamic finance and evaluation of public policies to promote the development for Islamic financial industry. It is also served as a key text for students, academics, researchers, policy-makers in the field of Islamic finance.

This book focuses on the management of ship operations, an activity that requires integrative knowledge and technical expertise that spans various disciplines. As such, ship operations personnel are expected to be well-versed with aspects of management, economics, engineering, technology and law. Further, ship operations management requires the ability to identify and neutralize threats and to manage risks and make decisions that will optimize costs and contribute to performance improvements. Despite the fundamental nature of ship operations management, no book has ever attempted to reconcile and compile a comprehensive body of knowledge, while pursuing a coherent, structured and systematic approach. This edited volume addresses that fundamental gap in the extant literature, and brings together a wealth of knowledge from experts in their respective fields. Concretely, it explores issues of organization, technical management, crewing and behavioral issues, chartering and post fixture, risk management, finance, legal aspects of international conventions and regulations, attainment of safety, security and marine insurance, as well as ocean governance and sustainability. As such, the book offers a vital reference guide for maritime companies and organizations, while also serving as a teaching supplement in academic and professional maritime programmes.

This book describes specific problems and proposes solutions for different areas of finance in Central and Southeastern European countries. Covering a broad spectrum of topics, from monetary economics and electronic money to capital markets, banking and insurance, it comprises theoretical and empirical contributions by authors from nine countries - Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia and Greece. Intended for academics as well as policy makers and practitioners it offers new perspectives on Central and Southeastern European finance research.

This book explores the profound transformation that has taken place in European insurance legislation since January 2016. Expert contributions discuss the changes that have taken place in the supervision of insurance and reinsurance undertakings through an economic risk-based approach. They outline the European insurance market before going on to show how Solvency II and Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) are expected to generate significant benefits and have a positive impact on all parties involved in the insurance industry, the supervisory authorities and the insured. They also show how Solvency II is likely to benefit the economy as a whole, promoting more efficient allocation of capital and risk in a financial stability framework. This volume will be of interest to academics and researchers in the field of insurance regulation.

This study investigates the complex link between natural disasters, individual behaviour - in the form of an individual's risk-taking propensity and level of trust - and the demand for microinsurance. Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of natural hazards and climate change as they affect their development processes and set back poverty reduction efforts. Using a unique data set for rural Cambodia based on a survey, experimental games and a discrete choice experiment, the study highlights the importance of perceptions, expectations and psychological factors in decision-making processes with substantial consequences for long-term economic perspectives and poverty alleviation.

This informative volume synthesizes the literatures on health economics, risk management, and health services into a concise guide to the financial and social basics of health insurance with an eye to its wide-scale upgrade. Its scope takes in concepts of health capital, strengths and limitations of insurance models, the effectiveness of coverage and services, and the roles of healthcare providers and government agencies in the equation. Coverage surveys the current state of group and public policies, most notably the effects of the Affordable Care Act on insurers and consumers and the current interest in universal coverage and single-payer plans. Throughout, the author provides systemic reasons to explain why today's health insurance fails so many consumers, concluding with reality-based recommendations for making insurance more valuable to both today's market and consumer well-being. Included among the topics: *Defining health insurance and healthcare finance. *Consuming and investing in health. *The scope of health insurance and its constraints. *Matching health insurance supply and demand. *The role of government in health insurance. *Ongoing challenges and the future of health insurance. Bringing a needed degree of objectivity to often highly subjective material, What Is Health Insurance (Good) For? is a call to reform to be read by health insurance researchers (including risk management insurance and health services research), professionals, practitioners, and policymakers.