Applications of Statistics in the Field of General Insurance: An Overview

This is an expository paper on applications of statistics in the field of general insurance, also called non‐life insurance. Unlike life insurance where advanced statistical techniques have long been part of financial mathematics and actuarial applications, their use is only relatively recent in non‐life insurance. The business model of insurance companies, especially those active in non‐life insurance, has seen dramatic changes over the last 15 years. The aim of this paper is to convince the readers that especially today non‐life insurance is not only an exciting ground to apply existing modern statistical tools but also a fertile environment for new and challenging statistical developments. The activities of an insurance company can be viewed as an industrial process where data management and data analysis play a key role. That is why a fundamental understanding of data‐related issues (such as data quality, variability, analysis and correct interpretation) is so essential to the insurance business. These are exactly the tasks where professional statisticians excel. Also, a better understanding of the field of general insurance by statisticians will promote fruitful exchanges between actuaries and statisticians, thereby helping to bring actuarial and statistical professional societies closer to each other. Selected examples are used to cover the essential aspects of general insurance, and all of them are based on the author's experience. The paper concludes with some remarks on the role of statisticians working in general insurance.     

On the Endogeneous Formation of Secondary Employment Centers in a City

A new approach is proposed to explain the formation of secondary employment centers in a monocentric city. Specifically, a large firm considers locating a new plant in a city where none of the existing businesses has a significative share of the labor force, so that its location can be viewed as a secondary employment center. The choice of this location results from the interplay between the process of competition on both the labor and land markets and the technological externalities generated by the proximity of the city center where other firms are located.     

Identity narratives under threat: A study of former members of Arthur Andersen

This paper examines the processes by which individuals work their sense of organizational and professional identity in the aftermath of a professional failure. Drawing on twenty-five interviews carried out with former members of Arthur Andersen who mostly worked for the firm in Canada and the United Kingdom, we investigate interviewees’ identity work ensuing from the breakdown of the firm. Specifically, identity work comprises processes by which individuals reflectively seek to maintain or revise their sense of identification with the AA organization and also with the public accounting profession, along with developing self-understandings regarding causes and consequences ensuing from the firm’s collapse. Our analysis indicates that four interpretive schemes or patterns mainly characterize interviewees’ identity work: disillusion; resentfulness; rationalization; and hopefulness. Each of these patterns can be viewed as conveying a distinct representation of what “truly” happened within AA. In this sense, identity work, sense-making and truth contests are inextricably linked altogether. Moreover, the present paper underlines the pertinence of studying entangled processes of identity work and sense-making in order to better understand how broader social forces or discourses (e.g., commercialization and risk) are experienced and translated by the self in the context of identity-threatening events. That is, the identity work/sense-making nexus constitutes a relevant theoretical anchoring to study the circulation of discourses in society.     

Multivariate choices and identification of social interactions

This paper considers the identification of social interaction effects in the context of multivariate choices. First, we generalize the theoretical social interaction model to allow individuals to make interdependent choices in different activities. Based on the theoretical model, we propose a simultaneous equation network model and discuss the identification of social interaction effects in the econometric model. We also provide an empirical example to show the empirical salience of this model. Using the Add Health data, we find that a student's academic performance is not only affected by academic performance of his peers but also affected by screen‐related activities of his peers.     

Practical methods for measuring and managing operational risk in the financial sector: A clinical study

This paper analyzes the implications of the advanced measurement approach (AMA) for the assessment of operational risk. Through a clinical case study on a matrix of two selected business lines and two event types of a large financial institution, we develop a procedure that addresses the major issues faced by banks in the implementation of the AMA. For each cell, we calibrate two truncated distributions functions, one for “normal” losses and the other for the “extreme” losses. In addition, we propose a method to include external data in the framework. We then estimate the impact of operational risk management on bank profitability, through an adapted measure of RAROC. The results suggest that substantial savings can be achieved through active management techniques.     

Competitive pricing strategies in social networks

We study pricing strategies of competing firms selling heterogeneous products to consumers. Goods are substitutes and there are network externalities between neighboring consumers. In equilibrium, firms price discriminate based on the network positions and charge lower prices to more central consumers. We also show that, under some conditions, firms' equilibrium profits decrease when either the network becomes denser or network effects increase. In contrast, consumers always benefit from being more connected to each other. We determine the optimal network structure and compare uniform pricing and discriminatory pricing from the perspectives of firms and consumers.     

Extrinsic uncertainty revisited

This paper is devoted to extending the concept of extrinsic uncertainty introduced by Cass and Shell for von Neumann-Morgenstern utility functions to a class of ordinal utility functions. It is shown that the important result that extrinsic uncertainty does not matter in a pure exchange economy extends to the more general framework.     

Accountants as “new guard dogs” of capitalism: Stereotype or research agenda?

Drawing inspiration from the theses of the regulation school, Gerard Hanlon analyses the socialisation process in the “big six”. For accountants are, according to him, the new “controllers” of “a process of flexible accumulation”, one that goes hand in hand with a heightened international division of labour. Unfortunately, his research site remains too limited to confirm—or disconfirm—his ambitious hypotheses. Moreover, the transposition of neo-marxist theories leads him to underestimate the whole work of construction of social credibility of accounting knowledge, as well as the complex play of interaction—and not only of opposition—between these “multinational service conglomerates” and the local or national dignitaries who continue to represent the core of the field of practice.     

Perceived importance of native language use in service encounters

Despite the importance of interactions in services, the role language plays in services is an under-researched field. This paper outlines for which services language is especially important. Consistent across studies in three countries (Belgium, Canada and Finland), the findings suggest that bilingual consumers find it particularly important to be served in their native language in high-involvement services. Moreover, for high-involvement services, all consumers find it important to be served in their native language. For low-involvement services, elderly consumers are less willing to switch language than young consumers. The importance of native language use did not differ between males and females.