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.

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

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 is the outcome of the CIMPA School on Statistical Methods and Applications in Insurance and Finance, held in Marrakech and Kelaat M'gouna (Morocco) in April 2013. It presents two lectures and seven refereed papers from the school, offering the reader important insights into key topics. The first of the lectures, by Frederic Viens, addresses risk management via hedging in discrete and continuous time, while the second, by Boualem Djehiche, reviews statistical estimation methods applied to life and disability insurance. The refereed papers offer diverse perspectives and extensive discussions on subjects including optimal control, financial modeling using stochastic differential equations, pricing and hedging of financial derivatives, and sensitivity analysis. Each chapter of the volume includes a comprehensive bibliography to promote further research.

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.

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.

Fabian Regele examines the appropriateness of the current regulatory treatment and the general suitability of unlisted infrastructure equity investments for the investment purposes of insurance companies. The employed valuation model of a stylized infrastructure asset delivers sound economic results and is consistent with the typical J-curve effect of the cumulative cash flows of these assets. In the context of a portfolio optimization, the infrastructure asset improves the insurance company's solvency situation by lowering its default probability and increasing its solvency ratio. In regard to the asset's risk contribution, there is a time-variant occurrence of certain risk channels during its lifecycle that leads to substantial differences in the risk exposure of the insurance company.

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.

This textbook aims to fill the gap between those that offer a theoretical treatment without many applications and those that present and apply formulas without appropriately deriving them. The balance achieved will give readers a fundamental understanding of key financial ideas and tools that form the basis for building realistic models, including those that may become proprietary. Numerous carefully chosen examples and exercises reinforce the student's conceptual understanding and facility with applications. The exercises are divided into conceptual, application-based, and theoretical problems, which probe the material deeper. The book is aimed toward advanced undergraduates and first-year graduate students who are new to finance or want a more rigorous treatment of the mathematical models used within. While no background in finance is assumed, prerequisite math courses include multivariable calculus, probability, and linear algebra. The authors introduce additional mathematical tools as needed. The entire textbook is appropriate for a single year-long course on introductory mathematical finance. The self-contained design of the text allows for instructor flexibility in topics courses and those focusing on financial derivatives. Moreover, the text is useful for mathematicians, physicists, and engineers who want to learn finance via an approach that builds their financial intuition and is explicit about model building, as well as business school students who want a treatment of finance that is deeper but not overly theoretical.

In Global Risk Agility and Decision Making, Daniel Wagner and Dante Disparte, two leading authorities in global risk management, make a compelling case for the need to bring traditional approaches to risk management and decision making into the twenty-first century. Based on their own deep and multi-faceted experience in risk management across numerous firms in dozens of countries, the authors call for a greater sense of urgency from corporate boards, decision makers, line managers, policymakers, and risk practitioners to address and resolve the plethora of challenges facing today's private and public sector organizations. Set against the era of manmade risk, where transnational terrorism, cyber risk, and climate change are making traditional risk models increasingly obsolete, they argue that remaining passively on the side-lines of the global economy is dangerous, and that understanding and actively engaging the world is central to achieving risk agility. Their definition of risk agility taps into the survival and risk-taking instincts of the entrepreneur while establishing an organizational imperative focused on collective survival. The agile risk manager is part sociologist, anthropologist, psychologist, and quant. Risk agility implies not treating risk as a cost of doing business, but as a catalyst for growth. Wagner and Disparte bring the concept of risk agility to life through a series of case studies that cut across industries, countries and the public and private sectors. The rich, real-world examples underscore how once mighty organizations can be brought to their knees-and even their demise by simple miscalculations or a failure to just do the right thing. The reader is offered deep insights into specific risk domains that are shaping our world, including terrorism, cyber risk, climate change, and economic resource nationalism, as well as a frame of reference from which to think about risk management and decision making in our increasingly complicated world. This easily digestible book will shed new light on the often complex discipline of risk management. Readers will learn how risk management is being transformed from a business prevention function to a values-based framework for thriving in increasingly perilous times. From tackling governance structures and the tone at the top to advocating for greater transparency and adherence to value systems, this book will establish a new generation of risk leader, with clarion voices calling for greater risk agility. The rise of agile decision makers coincides with greater resilience and responsiveness in the era of manmade risk.

The Health Care Safety Net in a Post-Reform World examines how national health care reform will impact safety net programs that serve low-income and uninsured patients. The "safety net" refers to the collection of hospitals, clinics, and doctors who treat disadvantaged people, including those without insurance, regardless of their ability to pay. Despite comprehensive national health care reform, over twenty million people will remain uninsured. And many of those who obtain insurance from reform will continue to face shortages of providers in their communities willing or able to serve them. As the demand for care grows with expanded insurance, so will the pressure on an overstretched safety net. This book, with contributions from leading health care scholars, is the first comprehensive assessment of the safety net in over a decade. Rather than view health insurance and the health care safety net as alternatives to each other, it examines their potential to be complementary aspects of a broader effort to achieve equity and quality in health care access. It also considers whether the safety net can be improved and strengthened to a level that can provide truly universal access, both through expanded insurance and the creation of a well-integrated and reasonably supported network of direct health care access for the uninsured. Seeing safety net institutions as key components of post-health care reform in the United States-as opposed to stop-gap measures or as part of the problem-is a bold idea. And as presented in this volume, it is an idea whose time has come.

Occupational pensions are major participants in global financial markets with assets of well over $30 trillion, representing more than 40% of the assets of institutional investors. Some occupational pension funds control assets of over $400 billion, and the largest 300 occupational pension funds each have average assets of over $50 billion. The assets of UK pension funds are equivalent to UK GDP, and US pension fund assets are 83% of US GDP. These statistics highlight the importance of pension funds as major players in financial markets, and the need to understand the behaviour of these large institutional investors. Occupational pensions also play an important, but neglected, role in corporate finance. For example, US company pension schemes account for over 60% of company market value, and yet they are often ignored when analysing companies. This book is based on the substantial body of evidence available from around the world on a topic that has become increasingly important and controversial in recent years. Written for practitioners, students and academics, this book brings together and systematizes a very large international literature from financial economists, actuaries, practitioners, professional organizations, official documents and reports. The underlying focus is the application of the principles of financial economics to occupational pensions, including the work of Nobel laureates such as Merton, Markowitz, Modigliani, Miller and Sharpe, as well as Black. This book will give readers an up-to-date understanding of occupational pensions, the economic issues they face, and some suggestions of how these issues can be tackled. The first section explains the operation of defined benefit and defined contribution pensions, along with some descriptive statistics. The second section covers selected aspects of occupational pensions. The focus of these first two sections is on the economic and financial aspects of pensions, accompanied by some basic information on how they operate. This is followed by three further sections that analyse the investment of pension funds, the corporate finance implications of firms providing pensions for their employees, and annuities.

The European system of insurance supervision under Solvency II constitutes a parallel to supervision of credit institutions under Basel III. At the heart of this new European insurance supervisory regime are the Solvency II Directive, the attendant regulation, and the EIOPA Regulation. The present volume, "Treatises on Solvency II", includes articles on the bases of European insurance supervision and the associated three pillars of solvency, governance, and disclosure, all viewed predominantly from a legal standpoint.

Legal reserve life insurance in the United States and Canada as a modern instrument for meeting the quest for economic security, has attained size and significance unparalleled elsewhere in the world. It holds in a fiduciary capacity more than $60 billion and affects the lives of half the population as owners of life insurance and annuity contracts. Still in process of evolution, it helps to shape the pattern of life and is at the same time being shaped by its own environment. This third volume of lectures issued under the auspices of the S. S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education deals with significant trends and problems in life insurance at the midpoint of the twentieth century. In so doing, it bears testimony to the vitality and adaptive power of this modem device for sharing one another's burdens.

Handbook of International Insurance: Between Global Dynamics and Local Contingencies analyzes key trends in the insurance industry in more than 15 important national insurance markets that represent over 90 percent of world insurance premiums. Well-known academics from Europe, the Americas and Asia examine their own national insurance markets, including the competitive structure, product and service innovations, and regulatory developments. The book provides academics and executives with an unprecedented range of information about today's insurance markets. This book also provides important 'new' information on the evolution of the financial sector worldwide and comprehensive chapters on reinsurance, Lloyd's of London, alternative risk transfer, South and East Asian insurance markets, and European insurance markets. Setting the stage is an overview chapter by the editors focusing on overall conclusions on globalization.

The interaction between mathematicians and statisticians has been shown to be an effective approach for dealing with actuarial, insurance and financial problems, both from an academic perspective and from an operative one. The collection of original papers presented in this volume pursues precisely this purpose. It covers a wide variety of subjects in actuarial, insurance and finance fields, all treated in the light of the successful cooperation between the above two quantitative approaches. The papers published in this volume present theoretical and methodological contributions and their applications to real contexts. With respect to the theoretical and methodological contributions, some of the considered areas of investigation are: actuarial models; alternative testing approaches; behavioral finance; clustering techniques; coherent and non-coherent risk measures; credit scoring approaches; data envelopment analysis; dynamic stochastic programming; financial contagion models; financial ratios; intelligent financial trading systems; mixture normality approaches; Monte Carlo-based methods; multicriteria methods; nonlinear parameter estimation techniques; nonlinear threshold models; particle swarm optimization; performance measures; portfolio optimization; pricing methods for structured and non-structured derivatives; risk management; skewed distribution analysis; solvency analysis; stochastic actuarial valuation methods; variable selection models; time series analysis tools. As regards the applications, they are related to real problems associated, among the others, to: banks; collateralized fund obligations; credit portfolios; defined benefit pension plans; double-indexed pension annuities; efficient-market hypothesis; exchange markets; financial time series; firms; hedge funds; non-life insurance companies; returns distributions; socially responsible mutual funds; unit-linked contracts. This book is aimed at academics, Ph.D. students, practitioners, professionals and researchers. But it will also be of interest to readers with some quantitative background knowledge.

This volume aims to collect new ideas presented in the form of 4 page papers dedicated to 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 and provides interesting scientific products in theoretical models and practical applications, as well as in scientific discussion of problems of national and international interest. This work reflects the results discussed at the biennial conference on Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance (MAF), born at the University of Salerno in 2004.

This book is an overview of the hazards of firefighting, the health risks of exposure to combustion products that characterize firefighting, the science behind interpreting these risks for purposes of identifying diseases as work-related, and the legal and policy implications of adopting legislated "presumption" for purposes of compensation. The emphasis of the book will be on the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, traumatic hazards, and disabling psychosocial adjustment following major incidents. Several new studies have appeared recently, including the largest study of firefighters ever done, by the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH). They evidence supports the conclusion that firefighters face significant occupational health risks in addition to the obviously severe safety hazards.

Focusing on life insurance and pensions, this book addresses various aspects of modelling in modern insurance: insurance liabilities; asset-liability management; securitization, hedging, and investment strategies. With contributions from internationally renowned academics in actuarial science, finance, and management science and key people in major life insurance and reinsurance companies, there is expert coverage of a wide range of topics, for example: models in life insurance and their roles in decision making; an account of the contemporary history of insurance and life insurance mathematics; choice, calibration, and evaluation of models; documentation and quality checks of data; new insurance regulations and accounting rules; cash flow projection models; economic scenario generators; model uncertainty and model risk; model-based decision-making at line management level; models and behaviour of stakeholders. With author profiles ranging from highly specialized model builders to decision makers at chief executive level, this book should prove a useful resource to students and academics of actuarial science as well as practitioners.

This book provides an introduction to investment appraisal and presents a range of methods and models, some of which are not widely known, or at least not well covered by other textbooks. Each approach is thoroughly described, evaluated and illustrated using examples, with its assumptions and limitations analyzed in terms of their implications for investment decision-making practice. Investment decisions are of vital importance to all companies. Getting these decisions right is crucial but, due to a complex and dynamic business environment, this remains a challenging management task. Effective appraisal methods are valuable tools in supporting investment decision-making. As organisations continue to seek a competitive edge, it is increasingly important that management accountants and strategic decision-makers have a sound knowledge of these tools.

An indispensable survival guide for high-net-worth individuals and their advisors If you're like most high-net-worth individuals nowadays, you are underinsured, over-targeted in litigation, and dangerously exposed to risks that can profoundly jeopardize your lifestyle and rob you and your family of what they ve worked so hard to achieve. Don't risk it all for lack of basic knowledge. Read Wealth Exposed and get the practical guidance and real-world solutions you need to protect your hard-earned assets. Written by a leading national risk management expert with extensive experience advising high-net-worth individuals, Wealth Exposed alerts you to the full range of risks to which high-net-worth individuals are exposed, while schooling you in your risk management ABCs. Designed for high-net-worth individuals, their CPAs, attorneys, family office managers, and others, Wealth Exposed arms you with the knowledge and tools you need to protect yourself, or your clients, from mayhem. * Provides a framework for creating a comprehensive personal risk management strategy * Contains numerous real-life anecdotes and case studies drawn from the author's case files * Discusses insurance solutions for property, cars, jewelry, aircraft, watercraft, wine, cars, and more Read Wealth Exposed and find out what you need to know to protect your assets from risk and secure your peace of mind.

This Brief presents a benefit-cost analysis of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) as well as an evaluation of its cumulative socioeconomic effects. Created by Congress in 1968, the NFIP provides flood insurance protection to property owners, in return for local government commitment to sound floodplain management. Since 1994, the NFIP has included a Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) program to provide local communities with support for flood mitigation. This book offers quantitative evidence of the net social benefit of the NFIP for the years 1996-2010, including an independent assessment of the consumer benefit. Second, it provides distributionally weighted analysis to show the socioeconomic effects of payments and claims. Finally, this Brief includes an analysis of the change in government revenue attributable to the NFIP and FMA programs. The models used in each component of the analysis are usable by others for extending and revising the analysis. Providing a comprehensive analysis of this increasingly important federal policy, this Brief will be of use to students of environmental economics and public policy as well as those interested in risk management in the era of climate change.

This textbook provides a thorough introduction to natural disaster risk management. Many aspects of disaster risk management, such as those involved in earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, avalanches and mudslides call for similar prevention and preparedness instruments, management concepts, and countermeasures. This textbook assumes the viewpoint of a regional disaster risk manager who is responsible for a certain area, and for making the lives of the people who live there safer, regardless of the type of natural disaster that may occur. The same holds true for boosting preparedness and awareness in the population at risk. The book includes numerous examples of hazard mitigation concepts and techniques, as well as ways of intensively involving the local population in prevention schemes at an early stage. Furthermore, it provides an in-depth examination of the function of risk communication, both as an instrument for disseminating official information and as a function of public media. In closing, a chapter on risk splitting offers insights into insurance-based models for risk financing. This comprehensive book is a must-read for all students, researchers and practitioners dealing with natural disaster risk management.

Following events such as the 2008 credit crunch and financial crisis, many sectors of the economy suffered; nevertheless, reinsurance managed to maintain its strong position in the market industry and the global economic arena. Arbitration has traditionally been used in reinsurance, due in no small part to its effective, time- and cost-efficient nature. Hence, reinsurance contracts often include arbitration clauses requiring that any and all disputes arising under the contract be resolved by arbitration. The current work provides an in-depth treatment of reinsurance arbitrations and the various issues they entail in the most representative jurisdictions for such arbitrations. It also aims to pave the way for future directions of arbitration in the context of reinsurance. Any participant in the reinsurance market arena looking for a roadmap to the fascinating legal environment in which reinsurance arbitrations operate would be well advised to have this book on hand.

Risk compensation postulates that everyone has a "risk thermostat" and that safety measures that do not affect the setting of the thermostat will be circumvented by behaviour that re-establishes the level of risk with which people were originally comfortable. It explains why, for example, motorists drive faster after a bend in the road is straightened. Cultural theory explains risk-taking behaviour by the operation of cultural filters. It postulates that behaviour is governed by the probable costs and benefits of alternative courses of action which are perceived through filters formed from all the previous incidents and associations in the risk-taker's life.; "Risk" should be of interest to many readers throughout the social sciences and in the world of industry, business, engineering, finance and public administration, since it deals with a fundamental part of human behaviour that has enormous financial and economic implications.