By W. Jean Kwon For years, the insurance industry was essentially about mathematical quantification and financial transformation of physical risks. But our world has become more interconnected with the advent of the internet, blockchain etc.: as a consequence, cyber risk is expanding rapidly. Here, Prof. W. Jean Kwon looks at how the insurance industry will adapt to the “cyber-physical” world order. Source: SSRN
By Gary Anderson, Olivia S. Mitchell People covered by public pensions are often the subject of 'pension envy:' that is, their benefits might seem more generous and their contributions lower than those offered by the private sector. Yet this book points out that such judgments are often inaccurate, since civil servants hold jobs with few counterparts in private industry, such as firefighters, police, judges, and teachers. Often these are riskier, dirtier, and demand more loyalty and discretion than would...
By Susana Párraga Rodríguez This paper estimates the impact of pension-related policies on household spending. The identification strategy exploits the deviation in pensioner income and expenditure caused by the introduction of a new pension system during the 1980s and 1990s in Spain and constructs a new narrative series of legislated pension changes. I present a variety of estimates, some of them imply that increases in the average pension have a roughly one-for-one effect on pensioner spending. The strongest effects...
By Adam Kobor, Arun Muralidhar There is a growing retirement crisis and most of the focus has been on the fact that individuals are not saving enough for retirement, may not have access to pension schemes, or are financially illiterate. More critically, assets/financial products available to investors, may not be appropriate for the typical individual saving for retirement. The goal of retirement is to try to guarantee a target level of income ideally from retirement till death. Current glide...
By Arun Muralidhar Another retirement crisis is looming as one-third of private-sector, typically poor and unsophisticated workers, probably have little to no pension security. The fifty states have decided to enact reforms, but they are unwilling to assume any liability. Effective reform should ensure a target, guaranteed, inflation/standard-of-living-indexed retirement income through death. The book proposes a four-step reform process that articulates roles, responsibilities, and sequencing of steps to effectively address the looming retirement crisis. Current reform models potentially expose...
By Marco Micocci, Greg N Gregoriou, Giovanni Batista Masala As pension fund systems decrease and dependency ratios increase, risk management is becoming more complex in public and private pension plans. Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling sheds new light on the current state of pension fund risk management and provides new technical tools for addressing pension risk from an integrated point of view. Divided into four parts, the book first presents the correct measurement of risk...
By Brian O'Loughlin, Frank O'Brien Post the Financial Crash, the role of regulation and the impact of regulation on all aspects of the financial industry has broadened and intensified. This book offers a comprehensive review of the operations of the industry post-financial crisis from a variety of perspectives. This new edition builds upon the authors’ predecessor book, Fundamentals of Investment: An Irish Perspective. The core of the original text is retained particularly concerning fundamental concepts such as discounted...
By Mathieu Boudreault, Jean-Francois RenaudA Drs. Boudreault and Renaud answer the need for a clear, application-oriented guide to the growing field of actuarial finance with this volume, which focuses on the mathematical models and techniques used in actuarial finance for the pricing and hedging of actuarial liabilities exposed to financial markets and other contingencies. With roots in modern financial mathematics, actuarial finance presents unique challenges due to the long-term nature of insurance liabilities, the presence of mortality or other contingencies...
By Katherine S Newman As millions of Baby Boomers reach their golden years, the state of retirement in America is little short of a disaster. Nearly half the households with people aged 55 and older have no retirement savings at all. The real estate crash wiped out much of the home equity that millions were counting on to support their retirement. And the typical Social Security check covers less than 40% of pre-retirement wages--a number projected to drop to under...
The market volatility experienced in early to mid-October speaks to the importance of plan sponsors having a governance structure and framework in place to effectuate changes to their portfolios in a timely manner when funded levels rise. As we have seen in prior periods, improvements in funded status can dissipate quickly if portfolios are not adjusted to reduce asset and liability mismatches. A well-funded or even fully funded plan can still carry substantial risk for the sponsor if plan...
