Compound Poisson Model with Covariates

Abstract

Pet insurance in North America continues to be a growing industry. Unlike in Europe, where some countries have as much as 50% of the pet population insured, very few pets in North America are insured. Pricing practices in the past have relied on market share objectives more so than on actual experience. Pricing still continues to be performed on this basis with little consideration for actuarial principles and techniques. Developments of mortality and morbidity models to be used in the pricing model and new product development are essential for pet insurance. This paper examines insurance claims as experienced in the Canadian market. The time-to-event data are investigated using the Cox’s proportional hazards model. The claim number follows a nonhomogenous Poisson process with covariates. The claim size random variable is assumed to follow a lognormal distribution. These two models work well for aggregate claims with covariates. The first three central moments of the aggregate claims for one insured animal, as well as for a block of insured animals, are derived. We illustrate the models using data collected over an eight-year period.     

美国国债评级展望下调的根源及前景——基于标普下调美国国债评级展望的分析

标普下调美国国债评级展望的事件引发市场剧烈波动,美国国债问题备受关注。文章分析指出,美国财经纪律松散、回避长期性经济结构调整而依赖短期性刺激救助政策等因素,是构成本次国债评级展望下调的深层原因,而未来由美国＂婴儿潮＂引发的＂银发海啸＂及社会医疗保险支出的上升将加剧财政收支矛盾。总体来看,美国国债评级短期内大幅下调的可能性不大,但长期风险不容忽视。     

On Investing in the Equity of Small Firms

This comment provides a brief discussion of the roles of different investors in small business firms. It then evaluates the contribution made in papers by in this issue by Robinson and Cottrell on informal investors in Alberta, Canada, and by Pintado, Pérez de Lema, and Van Auken on venture capital investment in Spain.     

The influences of internal service quality and job standardization on job satisfaction with supports as mediators: flight attendants at branch workplace

Service organizations commonly achieve job satisfaction through internal service quality (ISQ), job standardization, and enhanced customer orientation. However, unlike employees working at headquarters, branch employees do not have access to timely responses and organizational support. This study, using flight attendants working offsite as research samples, looked at how workplace supervisor and co-worker support mediate ISQ and job standardization that contribute to job satisfaction. The results indicated that ISQ and job standardization in branch offices may, directly or indirectly, affect job satisfaction through support from supervisors and co-workers, which strengthened customer orientation. ISQ had a higher impact on supervisor support than on co-worker support, and job standardization had a higher impact on co-worker support than on supervisor support. Based on these findings, a customer-oriented model was established for the branches, and a number of suggestions on theory and managerial implementation were proposed.     

On why the gender employment gap in Britain has stalled since the early 1990s

Using over four decades of British micro data, this article looks at how the narrowing gender employment gap stalled in the early 1990s. Changes to the structure of employment between and within industry sectors impacted the gap at approximately constant rates throughout the period and do not account for the stall. Instead, changes to how women's likelihood of paid work was affected by their partners' characteristics explain most of the gap's shift in trend. Increases in women's employment when they had children or achieved higher qualifications continued to narrow the gap even after it had stalled overall.     

The calling of the virtuous manager: Politics shepherded by practical wisdom

This paper extends an ongoing discussion about establishing a sharper way to conduct ethical investigations into managerial virtue. It does so by relying on Alasdair MacIntyre's moral philosophy in place of those more dominant approaches taken by scholars who make up the field of positive social science. A connection is drawn herein between a MacIntyrean “narrative approach” to investigating managerial virtue and the idea of “work as a calling.” Specifically, it will be argued that the MacIntyrean-influenced idea of “work as a calling” provides a substantive moral vision that supports an understanding of how virtuous managers ought to narrate their primary workplace motivations. Ultimately, virtuous managers fulfill a “political calling” to support and sustain (a) good work, (b) the good of individual lives, and (c) the common good of communities that their organization reaches. To do this, they must rely on the “shepherd virtue” of practical wisdom (phronesis). Practical wisdom aids virtuous managers’ thinking about achieving the ends of their “calling” as well as any necessary course-corrections that ought to be made toward the better achievement of those good and worthy ends.