Handling Weather Related Risks Through the Financial Markets: Considerations of Credit Risk, Basis Risk, and Hedging

The profits of many businesses are strongly affected by weather related events, and insurance against weather related risks (acts of God) has been a traditional domain for transfer of (certain) of these risks. Recent innovations in the capital market have now provided financial instruments to transfer and hedge some of these risks. Unlike insurance solutions, however, using these financial derivative instruments creates a situation in which the return to the purchaser of the instrument is no longer perfectly correlated with the loss experienced. Such a mismatch creates new risks which must be examined and evaluated as part of ascertaining cost effective risk management plans. Two newly engendered risks, basis risk (the risk created by the fact that the return from the financial derivative is a function of weather at a prespecified geographical location which may not be identical to the location of the firm) and credit risk (the risk that the counterparty to the derivative contract may not perform), are analyzed in this article. Using custom tailored derivatives from the over the counter market can decrease basis risk, but increases credit risk. Using standardized exchange traded derivatives decreases credit risk but increases basis risk. Here also the effectiveness of using hedging methods involving forwards and futures having linear payoffs (linear hedging) and methods using derivatives having nonlinear payoffs such as those involving options (nonlinear hedging) for the purpose of hedging basis risk are examined jointly with credit risk.     

FROM COMPETITION TO REGULATION: THE SIX-YEAR BATTLE TO REGULATE CALIFORNIA'S INSURANCE MARKETS

Abstract: The passage of California's Proposition 103 in November 1988 changed the State's regulatory structure for insurers from a competitive to a heavily regulated system. The six-year legal battle that followed resulted in several California Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court rulings and an ultimate implementation of rate roll backs on property-liability insurers on November 22, 1994. The study examines both property-liability and life insurers' returns. While only property-liability insurers are affected by the rale rollback and prior approval rate regulation, both life and property-liability insurers are affected by the proposition's other provisions. This paper examines the effect of successive changes on both types of insurance companies and analyzes the differential impact of the changes in regulatory structure.     

Parental Compensatory Behaviors and Early Child Health Outcomes in Cebu, Philippines()

A dynamic optimization model of parents choosing investments in their children's health motivates an empirical model of parents' choices of health inputs for their children and the impacts of these decisions on their children's subsequent health. Estimates of the child health input demand functions and the child health production functions from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey accord with the prediction that optimizing behavior results in higher levels of aggregate child health. Observable parental behaviors respond to the physical developmental status of their children. These parental responses appear to yield large and statistically significant improvements in children's early physiological outcomes. However, because some health inputs choices are not observable, it is impossible to ascertain whether these measured effects are due solely to variations in the observed input choices.     

Professional tensions in science and technology: the case of the Colleges of Advanced Technology

Two possible patterns for the organization of advanced technological education can be detected in Britain since 1945. The dominant assumption links training closely to fundamental advances in the sciences, and centralizes teaching at a small number of specialist institutions. The influence of such a policy is seen in the decisions which limited the numbers of Colleges of Advanced Technology in 1956, and in the continuing pressure from science advisory circles for the establishment of a few high-level training centres. The alternative pattern seeks to respond to the diverse range of industrial demands at local level in a decentralized system of technological training whose goals and standards are readily influenced by the technical and manpower demands of neighbouring industry. Neglect of this alternative can be explained from persistent trends in British professional organization, but the economic consequences may well be momentous.     

China's productivity challenge

After capturing the world's attention with the 2008 Olympics, what's next for China? Linda Yueh says the answer can be found by tracking China's labour productivity.     

Boarding the Aircraft: Trust Development Amongst Negotiators of a Complex Merger

We explore trust development in the context of an international merger negotiation. Based on in‐depth interviews with chief negotiators of the Air France–KLM merger, we contribute to existing theory by showing that trust develops in three interrelated domains: personal, process, and outcome. Progressively, trust develops in all domains on the basis of antecedents that differ between phases and domains. Distinguishing between different domains facilitates analysis of trust asymmetry and the coexistence of trust and distrust, as well as the influence of trust in interorganizational relationships.