Mortality investigation among persons whose applications for insurance have heen rejected

Abstract

Extract

Life insurance companies are interested III investigations of the mortality among that group of applicants whose applications for insurance, for health reasons, have not been accepted. The compa. nies thereby obtain material enabling them to decide whether their rejection policy during a period has been too strict or not, and on which points, if any, the selection of risks can be liberalized.     

Meddelelse fra bedømmelseskomiteen for den av de nordiske aktuarforeninger opstillede prisopgave

Abstract

I 1922 besluttede de nordiske aktuarforeninger å utskrive en priskonkurranse for et arbeide på aktuarvidenskapens område, og undertegnede blev av de enkelte foreninger opnevnt til redaksjonskomite for opgaven og til bedømmelseskomite for eventuelle besvarelser.     

Will Markets Direct Investments Under the Kyoto Protocol? Lessons from the Activities Implemented Jointly Pilots

Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries can meet treaty obligations by investing in projects that reduce or sequester greenhouse gases elsewhere. Prior to ratification, treaty participants agreed to launch country-based pilot projects, referred to collectively as Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ), to test novel aspects of the project-related provisions. Relying on a ten-year history of projects, we investigate the determinants of AIJ investment. Our findings suggest that review-agency preferences related to national political objectives and possibly deeper cultural ties influenced project selection and limited the number of AIJ projects. Bilateral ties also appear to have affected investment decisions directly, possibly because of related transaction costs. The results suggest an investment process different from the assumptions that underlie well-known estimates of cost-savings related to the Protocol’s flexibility mechanisms. We conclude that if approaches developed under the AIJ programs to approve projects are retained, the scale of investment under Kyoto’s flexibility provisions and their cost-savings will be less than what is generally anticipated and the pattern of investment less driven by abatement costs.      

“Relationship marketing” and the “markets‐as‐networks approach”—a comparative analysis of two evolving streams of research

Predating the increased attention by marketing academics on relationship marketing, European marketing scholars developed a network approach to the study of industrial markets that is also based on relationships between seller and buyer as a fundamental concept. This article aims to analyse the similarities and the differences between relationship marketing studies and network studies. After comparative analyses of definitions, empirical and research foundations, attributes related to governance structures and to the marketing mix approach and of major issues addressed in the research agendas, the conclusion is: relationship marketing in its limited interpretation is just a development within the marketing mix approach. Relationship marketing in its extended interpretation is, or rather could become, close to the markets‐as‐networks approach. However the basic attribute in network studies of “embeddedness” is largely missing in relationship marketing. To develop relationship marketing as a generic concept, researchers need to address also the issue of the generic nature of the market. Because when relationships are regarded as the generic governance form for transactions, then the market itself becomes network‐like!     

Willingness to Pay and Sensitivity to Time Framing: A Theoretical Analysis and an Application on Car Safety

Stated preference (SP) surveys attempt to obtain monetary values for non-market goods that reflect individuals’ “true” preferences. Numerous empirical studies suggest that monetary values from SP studies are sensitive to survey design and so may not reflect respondents’ true preferences. This study examines the effect of time framing on respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for car safety. We explore how WTP per unit risk reduction depends on the time period over which respondents pay and face reduced risk in a theoretical model and by using data from a Swedish contingent valuation survey. Our theoretical model predicts the effect to be nontrivial in many scenarios used in empirical applications. In our empirical analysis we examine the sensitivity of WTP to an annual and a monthly scenario. Our theoretical model predicts the effect from the time framing to be negligible, but the empirical estimates from the annual scenario are about 70 % higher than estimates from the monthly scenario.     

BANKRUPTCY DISCRIMINATION WITH REAL VARIABLES

This paper reconsiders the accepted usage of nondeflated financial ratios in statistical models to differentiate between failed and nonfailed firms. Non-deflated ratios are hypothesized to inadequately reflect inter-temporal macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the ability of firm's to survive. Using a sample of 124 oil and gas companies between the period 1982–1988, the going concern assumption is evaluated with statistical logit models using either nondeflated or deflated financial ratios. Deflated company ratios are created by transforming data with price indices or by creating market value ratios. Empirical results suggest that a superior bankruptcy early warning model is developed for the oil and gas industry by creating real financial and reserve ratios and by introducing external factors, such as oil prices, interest rates and accounting method, as independent predictors. Overall classification accuracy is approximately 95 percent.     

Econometric Evaluation of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve*

We give an appraisal of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NPCM) as an empirical model of European inflation. The favourable evidence for NPCMs on euro‐area data reported in earlier studies is shown to depend on specific choices made about estimation methodology. The NPCM can be re‐interpreted as a highly restricted equilibrium correction model. We also report the outcome of tests based on variable addition and encompassing of existing models. The results show that economists should not accept the NPCM too readily.     

Twin Data vs. Longitudinal Data to Control for Unobserved Variables in Earnings Functions – Which Are the Differences?*

This paper compares two different approaches empirically to control for unobserved characteristics when estimating the effect of marriage on male and female earnings: the longitudinal and the twins approach. The estimates were obtained by exploiting the longitudinal dimension of a large sample of Swedish twins, so that longitudinal and twin‐based estimates could be obtained in the same sample. The two approaches lead to different conclusions both regarding the role of unobserved characteristics in the cross‐sectional earnings–marriage relationship and the effect of marriage on earnings. The paper investigates three potential explanations of this difference.