Der Einsatz mehrjähriger interner Modelle zur Unterstützung von Managemententscheidungen

For value based management, internal models are needed which optimally reflect the insurer’s actual risk situation. Hence, the management demands stochastic models which allow a projection of several future years and so permit a risk evaluation for a longer period because annual projections are in general not sufficient for value based management. To meet these demands a concrete suggestion for an internal model in a several year context is made which includes management strategies. A risk based capital is defined in a several year context which can be used for strategic value based management. In a case study different management strategies are discussed and the effects on the return- and risk-profile of the insurer are analysed (in a one and several year context).     

The framing of risks and the communication of subjective probabilities for victimizations

What does ??likely?? mean, when respondents estimate the risk to become a victim of crime? Victimization risks can either be interpreted as gains (??being spared of offences??) or as losses (??becoming a victim of crime??). Because losses are perceived as more severe, respondents will state lower subjective victimization probabilities in the loss-frame, compared to the gain-frame. We demonstrate such a framing-effect with data from an experimental survey. Furthermore, we show that the meaning of vague quantifiers varies with the frequency and the severity of the event. Respondents assign to the same vague quantifiers (e.g. ??unlikely??) higher likelihoods in terms of percentages for frequent and for less severe events than for infrequent and for severe events. In conclusion, respondents do not use vague quantifiers consistently so that it is problematic to compare subjective risks for different victimizations.     

Take Your Time to Grow: A Field Experiment on the Hiring of Youths

We investigate the effect of spells of no formal employment of young Germans on their chances of entering the labor market through an apprenticeship. We also study whether the potential negative effects of such spells can be mitigated by publicly provided training measures. In a field experiment, the fictitious applications of three young women were sent to firms advertising apprenticeships for the position of office manager. One application was from a fresh school‐leaver and two from applicants who had been out of school for two years, where one of them had participated in a training measure. We find that applicants who have been out of school for two years and have participated in the training are more successful than older applicants without additional training. We do not find a significant difference between older applicants with or without training and fresh school leavers. Our findings show that training measures increase the attractiveness of applicants and that the potential stigma of spells of no formal employment after school are compensated by informal work experience or age or a combination of both.     

Personalmix in der Pflege

Der ?konomische Druck im Gesundheitswesen erfordert ver?nderte Organisationsstrukturen in Krankenh?usern. Dazu geh?rt, die Aufgaben der Berufsgruppen, die an der Versorgung der Patienten beteiligt sind, neu zu ordnen. Aber: Wie viel Delegation und Substitution ist für die Pflege praktikabel? Was bringt der Einsatz von Assistenzpersonal für den Stationsalltag? Erfahrungen aus den Vivantes Kliniken Berlin.     

International comparison of industrial development in the European context — the problems

Conclusion The index of production enables us to analyse current developments in the countries considered in the cyclical context, the information on real value added that is available for these branches of industry not being sufficiently up to date. In 1999, the division of labour within industry and between industry and the services sector changed, both nationally and in the international context. There was a rise in the nominal and the real ratios of intermediate input. Our conclusion is that, at least in some branches, the structural changes between 1995 and 1999 were of greater importance in Germany than in the other countries. In view of such structural changes the index of production cannot adequately reflect the dynamic of these branches in an international comparison. Different developments in the real ratios of intermediate input and divergent real developments in value added that are evident in the statistics are partly the result of the different methods of price deflation used in the countries and branches considered. The real value added gives a distorted picture of the development in output in these branches in the individual countries. The development in the index of production probably overstates the dynamic of German industry compared with industry in the other countries considered for the period on which this article is based, while understating the trend in value added. It follows from this that the indicators designed to measure output in economic sectors are not enough to give a realistic picture of the trend in output in branches of industry for international comparison. More information, e.g. the trends in employment and investment, also needs to be taken into account.     

Das stochastische Re-Reserving

Next to premium risk, reserve risk is an essential part of underwriting risk for property and casualty insurers. Up to now, the literature on non-life reserve risk for the most part only considered an ultimative point of view, which means that the reserve risk uncertainty would be quantified up to final settlement. In the context of the new Solvency II project, as well as against the background of internal models in a several year context, for now an intensified discussion about a one-year horizon has occurred. Thereby, the reserve risk uncertainty would only be quantified up to a one-year claims development result. In this paper we would like to present a simulation method, called stochastic Re-Reserving for modelling the reserve risk on a yearly basis. In addition to that, we would like to make a paradigmatic comparison between stochastic Re-Reserving and an analytical approach, called claims development result method (see Merz and Wuethrich, Modelling the claims development result for solvency purposes. In: CAS E-Forum, pp. 542–568, 2008).     

Social pressure,uncertainty, and cooperation

We analyse the role of uncertainty in a sequential game where players have to decide whether to contribute to a public project or not. A player's payoff may depend on his belief about the other player's action which allows us to model social pressure. Using the theory of psychological games, we show that the players' propensity to choose an individually costly action such as cooperation in a public project may increase if there is some uncertainty about who has cooperated before. A central agency, e.g. the government, can induce incomplete information by using a randomization policy, thus crowding in private contributions. Received: November 16, 1998 / Accepted: May 31, 1999     

Market Organisation and Trading Relationships

In this paper we give a theoretical model of buyers' behaviour on a market for a perishable good where no prices are posted. We show that if buyers learn from their own previous experience there is a sharp division between those who learn to be loyal to certain sellers and those who continue to 'shop around'. This feature remains in more general models which are simulated and is consistent with empirical data from the Marseille fish market.