Mindfulness-based training interventions for employees: A qualitative review of the literature

We provide a comprehensive qualitative review of 67 published studies that have examined mindfulness-based training interventions conducted with employees. The findings indicate that the most common research designs were the pre-test/post-test only design (35.8%) and the randomized waitlist control group design (26.9%). About two-thirds of the studies included a control group (61.2%), with approximately three-quarters (75.6%) of these studies using random assignment. Of the 63 studies that used a conventional experimental design, the majority (65.1%) included only one follow-up assessment, most often immediately after training. Results indicated a great degree of heterogeneity in terms of program content, although many studies used some adaptation of Kabat-Zinn's (1990) Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (41.8%), an approach with a strong evidentiary base with clinical populations. All training programs incorporated practice, most (85.1%) used multiple methods of delivering the training material, and training varied considerably in total duration, session length, and the number of training sessions. Our review also found that the intended purpose of mindfulness-based training for employees was most commonly the reduction of stress/strain (80.6%), although a wide range of other targeted outcomes were documented. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for future research aimed at advancing our understanding of mindfulness-based training interventions with employees.     

Understanding visitor–resident relations in overtourism: developing resilience for sustainable tourism

While almost all travel destinations seek to increase tourists, less attention is paid to balancing the growth in tourists against consequent visitor–resident irritants, which is essential if the objective is to make tourism more sustainable. Overlooking the carrying capacity of a destination is a common mistake committed when formulating travel visa policies. Overtourism is a term recently used to contextualize this potential hazard to many popular tourist destinations worldwide. One notable case in point is the “multiple-entry permit” policy implemented in Hong Kong which is causing conflicts between mainland Chinese visitors and Hong Kong residents. To investigate the overtourism phenomenon in Hong Kong we develop a hysteresis model. We hypothesized that ceteris paribus, the implementation of a “multiple-entry permit” policy would lead to an overwhelming growth in day-trippers and cause a permanently negative cointegrating relationship with residents’ sentiment. We confirmed our hypothesis by using the bound tests of Autoregressive-Distributed Lag models. Our findings suggest that policymakers should note that the deterioration in visitor–resident relations from overtourism may exhibit a significant hysteresis effect that will persist far beyond the original stimulus. “Developing resilience in tourism” and “exploring sustainable degrowth” are discussed as potential strategies for long-term tourism growth.     

Reinsurance contract design with adverse selection

ABSTRACT

In light of the richness of their structures in connection with practical implementation, we follow the seminal works in economics to use the principal–agent (multidimensional screening) models to study a monopolistic reinsurance market with adverse selection; instead of adopting the classical expected utility paradigm, the novelty of our present work is to model the risk assessment of each insurer (agent) by his value-at-risk at his own chosen risk tolerance level consistent with Solvency II. Under information asymmetry, the reinsurer (principal) aims to maximize his average profit by designing an optimal policy provision (menu) of ‘shirt-fit’ reinsurance contracts for every insurer from one of the two groups with hidden characteristics. Our results show that a quota-share component, on the top of simple stop-loss, is very crucial for mitigating asymmetric information from the insurers to the reinsurer.     

Moments of Discounted Dividends for a Threshold Strategy in the Compound Poisson Risk Model

Abstract

We consider a compound Poisson risk model in which part of the premium is paid to the shareholders as dividends when the surplus exceeds a specified threshold level. In this model we are interested in computing the moments of the total discounted dividends paid until ruin occurs. However, instead of employing the traditional argument, which involves conditioning on the time and amount of the first claim, we provide an alternative probabilistic approach that makes use of the (defective) joint probability density function of the time of ruin and the deficit at ruin in a classical model without a threshold. We arrive at a general formula that allows us to evaluate the moments of the total discounted dividends recursively in terms of the lower-order moments. Assuming the claim size distribution is exponential or, more generally, a finite shape and scale mixture of Erlangs, we are able to solve for all necessary components in the general recursive formula. In addition to determining the optimal threshold level to maximize the expected value of discounted dividends, we also consider finding the optimal threshold level that minimizes the coefficient of variation of discounted dividends. We present several numerical examples that illustrate the effects of the choice of optimality criterion on quantities such as the ruin probability.     

A Note on the Information Content of Relocating Corporate Domicile: A Trading Volume Approach

Overseas location of corporate domicile is not new for Hong Kong. Before the eighties, some companies operating in Hong Kong, principally shipping companies and financial institutions, registered overseas for tax purposes. Since 1989 there has been a rapid increase in the number of companies deciding to relocate, including industrial companies. This study examinies the association between sharemarket trading and the relocation announcement. The results indicate that unusually large trading volumes are observed immediately after the announcement day.     

Budget-constrained optimal reinsurance design under coherent risk measures

ABSTRACT

Reinsurance is a versatile risk management strategy commonly employed by insurers to optimize their risk profile. In this paper, we study an optimal reinsurance design problem minimizing a general law-invariant coherent risk measure of the net risk exposure of a generic insurer, in conjunction with a general law-invariant comonotonic additive convex reinsurance premium principle and a premium budget constraint. Due to its intrinsic generality, this contract design problem encompasses a wide body of optimal reinsurance models commonly encountered in practice. A three-step solution scheme is presented. Firstly, the objective and constraint functions are exhibited in the so-called Kusuoka's integral representations. Secondly, the mini-max theorem for infinite dimensional spaces is applied to interchange the infimum on the space of indemnities and the supremum on the space of probability measures. Thirdly, the recently developed Neyman–Pearson methodology due to Lo (2017a) is adopted to solve the resulting infimum problem. Analytic and transparent expressions for the optimal reinsurance policy are provided, followed by illustrative examples.     

On additivity of tail comonotonic risks

ABSTRACT

As perceived from daily experience together with numerous empirical studies, the multivariate risks demonstrate a strong coherence in the extremal dependence structure especially over the course of financial turmoil or industrial accidents and outbreaks. Under this motivating paradigm, we show the universal asymptotic additivity under upper tail comonotonicity, as the probability level approaching to 1, for Value-at-Risk and Conditional Tail Expectation for a portfolio of fixed number of risks, in which each marginal risk could be any one having a finite endpoint or belonging to one of the three max domains of attraction. Our obtained results do not require the tail equivalence assumption as needed in the existing literature. This resolves a lasting problem in quantitative risk management and covers most distributions commonly encountered in practice.     

Structural and Cyclical Factors behind Current Account Balances

Global external imbalances widened persistently over the last several years and have narrowed abruptly over the course of the financial crisis. Understanding the extent to which structural or cyclical factors may have driven these patterns is important to assess the likely evolution of global imbalances going forward, as well as the potential adjustment that can be achieved through changes in policy. This paper assesses the link between structural and cyclical factors and current account balances using a panel of 94 countries from 1973 to 2008. We find that the medium‐term evolution of global external imbalances can be related in large part to structural factors including cross‐country differences in demographics, fiscal deficits, oil dependency and intensity, stage of economic development, financial market development, and institutional quality. Part of the narrowing in current account balances since the financial crisis appears to be related to various cyclical factors including changes in output growth, oil prices, and exchange rates, and may be expected to reverse alongside the economic recovery.     

Relative Performance Incentives and Price Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets

We study experimental markets in which participants face incentives modeled upon those prevailing in markets for managed funds. Each participant's portfolio is periodically evaluated at market value and ranked by relative performance as measured by short‐term paper returns. Those who rank highly attract a larger share of new fund inflows. In an environment in which prices are typically close to intrinsic value, the effect of these incentives is mild. However, in an environment in which markets are prone to bubble, mispricing is greatly exacerbated by relative performance incentives and becomes even more pronounced with experience.