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.

Long-listed for the FT & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2011

The true story of how risk destroys, as told through the ongoing saga of AIG

From the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the subject of the financial crisis has been well covered. However, the story central to the crisis-that of AIG-has until now remained largely untold. "Fatal Risk: A Cautionary Tale of AIG's Corporate Suicide" tells the inside story of what really went on inside AIG that caused it to choke on risk and nearly brining down the entire economic system. The book
Reveals inside information available nowhere else, including the personal notes and records of key players such as the former Chairman of AIG, Hank GreenbergTakes readers behind the scenes at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New YorkDetails how an understanding of risk built AIG, but a disdain for government regulators led to a run-in with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer

"Fatal Risk" is the comprehensive and compelling true story of the company at the center of the financial storm and how it nearly caused the entire economic system to collapse.

Diese Studie untersucht den komplexen Zusammenhang zwischen Naturkatastrophen, individuellem Verhalten - in Form von individueller Risikobereitschaft und Vertrauensniveau - und der Nachfrage nach Mikroversicherungen. Entwicklungslander sind besonders anfallig fur die Auswirkungen von Naturkatastrophen und Klimawandel, da diese ihre Entwicklungsprozesse beeintrachtigen und die Bemuhungen zur Armutsbekampfung zuruckwerfen. Unter Verwendung eines einzigartigen Datensatzes fur das landliche Kambodscha, der auf einer Umfrage, experimentellen Spielen und einem diskreten Auswahlexperiment basiert, unterstreicht die Studie die Bedeutung von Wahrnehmungen, Erwartungen und psychologischen Faktoren in Entscheidungsprozessen mit erheblichen Folgen fur langfristige wirtschaftliche Perspektiven und die Armutsbekampfung.

In the mid-1960s geotechnical engineers paid the highest liability insurance of any profession and by 1969 were virtually uninsurable. As a result, the ASFE was founded and helped these engineers not only lower their insurance rates, but get to the point where, by 1980, they were the least liability-prone members of the design profession. Now, John Bachner and the ASFE tell all other design professionals how to accomplish the same task. This book, which incorporates the ASFE's Introduction to Professional Practice program for advancing architects' and engineers' knowledge of professional practice issues, addresses almost every aspect of the design professionals' practice as they relate to liability, from procedures for verifying the accuracy of technical output to steps for improving client and project selection, workscope development, personnel training and dispute resolution.

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.

In this new conference volume from the National Academy of Social Insurance, experts offer differing views on what changes will, and must, occur to ensure the continuing viability of Social Security, retirement benefits, unemployment insurance, Medicare, and health security programs. The book opens with a general overview of how economic and political forces will shape the future of social insurance. In the chapters that follow, contributors discuss and debate a full range of related topics, including future Social Security investment returns, the changing face of private retirement plans, insuring longevity risk in pensions and Social Security, issues in unemployment insurance, long-term financing, governance, and markets for Medicare, and health care for the underserved and uninsured. Contributors include William C. Dudley (Goldman Sachs), Richard Berner (Morgan Stanley Dean Witter), Kilolo Kijakazi (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), Fay Lomax Cook (Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University), Lawrence Jacobs (University of Minnesota), Jack VanDerhei (Fox School of Business Management, Temple University) Craig Copeland (Employee Benefit Research Institute), Jeffery R. Brown (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard), Janet Norwood (1993-96 Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation), Marilyn Moon (Urban Institute), Sheila Burke (Smithsonian Institution and Kennedy School of Government, Harvard), Mark Schlesinger (Yale), Gerard Anderson (Johns Hopkins University), Lauren LeRoy (Grantmakers in Health), Ruth Riedel (Alliance Healthcare Foundation of San Diego), and Henrie M. Treadwell (W. K. Kellog Foundations Community Voices).

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.

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.

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.

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

Praise for Endowment Building

"This comprehensive work shows how endowments can provide multiple opportunities for donor involvement when the solicitation program is well designed and integrated with other fund development and program goals. Emphasizing the critical ethical issues inherent in marketing and structuring endowment gifts, it is an excellent reference manual and training guide."
--Joanne Scanlan, PhD, Senior Vice President for Professional Development Council on Foundations, Washington, D.C.

"Endowment Building provides both practical, hands-on advice and a philosophical, inspirational framework to guide novice and experienced mission-based organizations. Given the demographic opportunities and challenges facing the nonprofit world, this book is a must-read."
--Nancy Herrold Strapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer Buckhorn Children & Family Services, Louisville, Kentucky

"A comprehensive guide on how to start, grow, and maintain an endowment. It shows how to put theory into practice with numerous real-life examples and success stories."
--Joe Bull, Director of Planned Giving, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

"After you read this book, you will know what to do and how to do it. It is a wonderful tool for new and emerging community foundations!"
--Kay M. Marquet, President and CEO, Community Foundation Sonoma County, California

"Endowment Building is an insightful, succinct, easy-to-read resource on building successful endowment programs. It's a well-organized guide containing practical suggestions and reminders of things development professionals know but some-times forget."
--Jeff W. Smith, Vice President andTrust Counsel, Baptist Foundation of Texas, Dallas

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

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 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.

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 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 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 book traces the development and analyses the performance of life insurance industry in India, since inception of this sector, using different business indicators over the years. It discusses the evolution and changing features of the Indian insurance industry in 3 phases: phase I from 1818 to 1956, phase II from 1956 to 2000 (known as the nationalisation period) and phase III post 2000 (called the post reform period). The book also measures the relative efficiency and productivity of the life insurance industry in India for the post-reform period, by employing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Despite the fact that the life insurance sector recorded a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17% in terms of total premiums and 21% in terms of new business premium collections during the post reform period, the insurers continue to grapple with the issue of profitability. Against this background, the book presents results on the factors determining profitability of the life insurance companies using measures of efficiency and competition. By helping regulatory authorities determine the future course of action in the context of entry of foreign insurers and also in establishing a level playing field, the book has important policy implications.

This book analyses investment management policies for institutional investors. It is composed of four parts. The first one analyses the various types of institutional investors, institutions which, with different objectives, professionally manage portfolios of financial and real assets on behalf of a wide variety of individuals. This part goes on with an in-depth analysis of the economic, technical and regulatory characteristics of the different types of investment funds and of other types of asset management products, which have a high rate of substitutability with investment funds and represent their natural competitors. The second part of the book identifies and investigates the stages of the investment portfolio management. Given the importance of strategic asset allocation in explaining the ex post performance of any type of investment portfolio, this part provides an in-depth analysis of asset allocation methods, illustrating the different theoretical and operational solutions available to institutional investors. The third part describes performance assessment, its breakdown and risk control, with an in-depth examination of performance evaluation techniques, returns-based style analysis approaches, and performance attribution models. Finally, the fourth part deals with the subject of diversification into alternative asset classes, identifying the common characteristics and their possible role within the framework of investment management policies. This part analyses hedge funds, private equity, real estate, commodities, and currency overlay techniques.

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.

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 examines good faith in non-marine insurance and takaful (Islamic insurance) contracts in Malaysia, and proposes holistic law reform of the same. The first two-thirds of the book comprise an extensive comparative legal analysis of the issues between Malaysia, Australia and the United Kingdom, with the final third dedicated to a socio-economic analysis of law reform and suggestions for law reform particularly suited to Malaysia. The book evaluates whether the duty of utmost good faith (the cornerstone of insurance and takaful contracts) is effectively regulated and, in turn, observed by insurers (and takaful operators) and insureds alike in Malaysia. The adequacy of the Insurance Act 1996 (Malaysia), the Takaful Act 1984 (Malaysia), the Financial Services Act 2013 (Malaysia) and the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 (Malaysia) is evaluated, along with the supporting infrastructure and oversight measures introduced by the Malaysian government. In doing so, The book examines the duty of utmost good faith from both a doctrinal and a social science perspective, in order to propose suitable legal reform.

Financial Mathematics for Actuarial Science: The Theory of Interest is concerned with the measurement of interest and the various ways interest affects what is often called the time value of money (TVM). Interest is most simply defined as the compensation that a borrower pays to a lender for the use of capital. The goal of this book is to provide the mathematical understandings of interest and the time value of money needed to succeed on the actuarial examination covering interest theory Key Features Helps prepare students for the SOA Financial Mathematics Exam Provides mathematical understanding of interest and the time value of money needed to succeed in the actuarial examination covering interest theory Contains many worked examples, exercises and solutions for practice Provides training in the use of calculators for solving problems A complete solutions manual is available to faculty adopters online