Training für den Beckenboden

Zusammenfassung  Vorsorge und konservative Therapie bei Harninkontinenz — Harninkontinenz ist mit circa 8 Millionen betroffenen Frauen in Deutschland ein gesellschaftlich relevantes Thema. Heute gibt es viele M?glichkeiten, die Inkontinenz erfolgreich zu verringern oder zu beseitigen. Eckpfleiler der konservativen Therapie ist das Beckenbodentraining, das physiotherapeutisch angeleitet wird und in den t?glichen Pflegeprozess integriert werden sollte.     

Return Guarantees with Delayed Payment

Abstract. A unit-linked insurance contract can be formulated in terms of a guaranteed amount together with a fraction of a positive excess return of a benchmark portfolio. Normally, the excess return is determined annually and accumulated until the maturity of the contract. The accumulation factor that is granted with respect to the delayed payments can either be deterministic or equal to the (stochastic) bank account. It turns out that the common choice of a deterministic accumulation factor gives rise to problems concerning the pricing and the risk management of the insurance contract.     

Zwischen Palmen und Müll

Zusammenfassung  Pflegepraktikum in Nicaragua — Die 22-j?hrige Pflegeschülerin Susanna Christen aus Berlin hat sich für ihr Wahlpraktikum einen ungew?hnlichen Ort ausgesucht: Sieben Wochen arbeitete sie in einem Krankenhaus in Nicaraguas Hauptstadt Managua.     

Variable annuities and the option to seek risk: Why should you diversify?

We analyze the impacts of an additional rider incorporated in recent retirement products. The payoff is linked to the performance of a multi asset investment strategy and includes a minimum interest rate guarantee. In addition, the buyer receives the option to decide on the investments dynamically. Prominent examples are so called variable annuities. Due to the embedded guarantee, these products are interesting for risk averse investors who benefit from diversification. However, the price setting of the provider takes into account the most risky strategy. This implies that the investor mitigates optimally between the diversification and the worst case strategy. We analyze the distortion and utility effects caused by the additional rider in the presence of background risk and borrowing constraints. A simulation analysis sheds light on the question if the additional rider is worth its costs.     

How Large are the Direct Employment Effects of New Businesses? An Empirical Investigation for West Germany

We analyze the development of employment in start-up cohorts, which is the direct gross employment effect of the new businesses. The data is for West Germany and covers the 1984–2002 period. While total employment in the cohorts remains above the initial level in manufacturing, we find a pronounced decline of employment below this level in the service sector. Only a small fraction of the firms create a considerable amount of jobs. The contribution that the start-up cohorts of the 1984–2002 period made to total employment in 2002 is nearly three times as high in services as in manufacturing.      

The benefit of life insurance contracts with capped index participation when stock prices are subject to jump risk

We analyze the benefit to the insured of newly traded, innovative life insurance contracts. On a sequence of yearly reference days, the insured can choose between a guaranteed return (linked to the insurer’s asset result) and a capped index participation. The cap is adjusted at the beginning of each year such that both alternatives have the same value and the option to select is costless (product structuring condition). We point out that this condition cannot always be met. If the guaranteed return exceeds the upper bound of the capped index participation, the insurer can make a side profit. We show that a rather low insurance result also implies a rather low stock exposure, even if the insured opts for the index participation. Concerning the impact of the index dynamics, we emphasize that it is important to distinguish between jump and diffusion risk because the pricing of jump risk has an impact on cap rates that can be offered to an insured. Finally, we show that the optimal decision strategy of a CRRA investor implies an index selection even if it is unfairly priced such that the insurer indeed makes a side profit.     

Optimal trade execution in order books with stochastic liquidity

In financial markets, liquidity changes randomly over time. We consider such random variations of the depth of the order book and evaluate their influence on optimal trade execution strategies. If the stochastic structure of liquidity changes satisfies certain conditions, then the unique optimal trading strategy exhibits a conventional structure with a single wait region and a single buy region, and profitable round‐trip strategies do not exist. In other cases, optimal strategies can feature multiple wait regions and optimal trade sizes that can be decreasing in the size of the position to be liquidated. Furthermore, round‐trip strategies can be profitable depending on bid–ask spread assumptions. We illustrate our findings with several examples including the Cox–Ingersoll–Ross model for the evolution of liquidity.