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In summer 2013, the term "Big Data" appeared and attracted a lot of interest from companies. This thesis examines the contribution of these methods to actuarial science. It addresses both theoretical and practical issues on high-potential themes such as textit{Optical Character Recognition} (OCR), text analysis, data anonymization and model interpretability. Starting with the application of machine learning methods in the calculation of economic capital, we then try to better illustrate the boundary that may exist between automatic learning and statistics. Highlighting certain advantages and different techniques, we then study the application of deep neural networks in the optical analysis of documents and text, once extracted. The use of complex methods and the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 led us to study its potential impacts on pricing models. By applying anonymization methods to pure premium calculation models in non-life insurance, we explored different generalization approaches based on unsupervised learning. Finally, as regulations also impose criteria in terms of model explanation, we conclude with a general study of methods that now allow a better understanding of complex methods such as neural networks; En été 2013, le terme de "Big Data" fait son apparition et suscite un fort intérêt auprès des entreprises. Cette thèse étudie ainsi l'apport de ces méthodes aux sciences actuarielles. Elle aborde aussi bien les enjeux théoriques que pratiques sur des thématiques à fort potentiel comme l'textit{Optical Character Recognition} (OCR), l'analyse de texte, l'anonymisation des données ou encore l'interprétabilité des modèles. Commençant par l'application des méthodes du machine learning dans le calcul du capital économique, nous tentons ensuite de mieux illustrer la frontrière qui peut exister entre l'apprentissage automatique et la statistique. Mettant ainsi en avant certains avantages et différentes techniques, nous étudions alors l'application des réseaux de neurones profonds dans l'analyse optique de documents et de texte, une fois extrait. L'utilisation de méthodes complexes et la mise en application du Réglement Général sur la Protection des Données (RGPD) en 2018 nous a amené à étudier les potentiels impacts sur les modèles tarifaires. En appliquant ainsi des méthodes d'anonymisation sur des modèles de calcul de prime pure en assurance non-vie, nous avons exploré différentes approches de généralisation basées sur l'apprentissage non-supervisé. Enfin, la réglementation imposant également des critères en terme d'explication des modèles, nous concluons par une étude générale des méthodes qui permettent aujourd'hui de mieux comprendre les méthodes complexes telles que les réseaux de neurones

International audience; The question of what monetary value should be assigned to consumed resources, that is to say the choice of the unit cost, is a major consideration in terms of impact on the cost analysis results. To date, no agreement has been reached regarding this methodological question. The choices made by methodologists and the subsequent impact on the results of the analysis are only rarely put forward. This work addresses the theoretical framework of health strategy evaluations that can be carried out either in the normative framework of the conventional economic approach of well-being, referred to as welfarist, or in that of an approach referred to as extra-welfarist. It also provides elements that help clarify the choice of the hospital unit costs used to calculate the cost of health strategies, so as to reconcile the use of such studies and improve their comparability. What is preferable, opting for specific per hospital unit costs or applying a standard unit cost to all facilities? How should a standard cost be calculated? Is it appropriate to calculate an average of the unit costs, as recommended by certain guidelines? The advantages and the limitations of the various modes of assessing hospital resources in the setting of multicentric trials are discussed.

This thesis focuses on population dynamics models and their applications, on one hand to demography and actuarial science, and on the other hand to Hawkes processes. This work explores through several viewpoints how population structures evolve over time, both in terms of ages and characteristics. In five chapters, we develop a common philosophy which studies the population at the scale of the individual in order to better understand the behavior of aggregate quantities.The first chapter introduces the motivations and details the main contributions in French. In Chapter 2, based on Bensusan et al. (2010–2015), we survey the modeling of characteristic and age-structured populations and their dynamics, as well as several examples motivated by demographic issues. We detail the mathematical construction of such population processes, as well as their link with well known deterministic equations in demography. We illustrate the simulation algorithm on an example of cohort effect, and we also discuss the role of the random environment. The two following chapters emphasize on the importance of the age pyramid. Chapter 3 uses a particular form of the general model introduced in Chapter 2 in order to study Hawkes processes with general immigrants. In this theoretical part based on Boumezoued (2015b) we use the concept of age pyramid to derive new distribution properties for a class of fertility functions which generalize the popular exponential case. Chapter 4 is based on Arnold et al. (2015) and analyses the impact of cause-of-death mortality changes on the population age pyramid, and in particular on the dependency ratio which is crucial to measure population ageing. By including birth patterns, this numerical work based on WHO data gives additional insights compared to the existing literature on causes of death focusing only on mortality indicators.The last two chapters focus on population heterogeneity. The aim of Chapter 5, based on Boumezoued et al. (2015), is to measure mortality heterogeneity on French longitudinal data called Échantillon Démographique Permanent. In this work, inspired by recent ad- vances in the statistical literature, we develop a parametric maximum likelihood method for multi-state models which takes into account both interval censoring and reversible tran- sitions. Finally, Chapter 6, based on Boumezoued (2015a), considers the general model introduced in Chapter 2 in which individuals can give birth, change their characteristics and die. The contribution of this theoretical work is the analysis of the population behavior when individual characteristics change very often. We establish a large population limit theorem for the age pyramid process, whose dynamics is described at the limit by birth and death rates which are averaged over the stable population composition.; Cette thèse porte sur la modélisation de la dynamique des populations et de ses appli- cations, à la démographie et l’actuariat d’une part, et à l’étude des processus de Hawkes d’autre part. Ces travaux de thèse proposent d’explorer à travers différents points de vue comment se déforme la structure d’une population, tant concernant la répartition des âges que sa composition en terme de caractéristiques. À travers cinq chapitres, nous déclinons une même philosophie qui, pour comprendre comment évoluent des quantités agrégées, propose d’étudier la dynamique de la population à une échelle plus fine, celle de l’individu.Après un premier chapitre introductif en langue française, détaillant les motivations et les principales contributions, nous proposons d’abord dans le Chapitre 2 la description du cadre général de la modélisation dynamique aléatoire de populations structurées en caractéristiques et en âges, sur la base de Bensusan et al. (2010–2015), ainsi que plusieurs exemples motivés par les applications démographiques et actuarielles. Nous détaillons la construction mathématique de tels processus ainsi que le lien avec les équations détermi- nistes classiques en démographie. Nous discutons également l’impact de l’hétérogénéité sur l’exemple d’un effet cohorte, ainsi que le rôle de l’environnement aléatoire.Les deux chapitres suivants mettent en avant l’importance de la pyramide des âges. Le modèle de population général issu du Chapitre 2 est décliné dans le Chapitre 3 pour étudier des processus de Hawkes avec immigrants généraux, pour lesquels nous exploitons le concept de pyramide des âges. Dans cette étude théorique, basée sur Boumezoued (2015b), nous établissons de nouveaux résultats sur leur distribution pour une classe de fonctions qui généralisent le cas exponentiel étudié jusqu’ici. Dans le Chapitre 4, qui reprend Arnold et al. (2015), nous analysons l’impact de changements dans la mortalité par causes de décès sur la dynamique de la pyramide des âges, et en particulier sur le ratio de dépendance qui est un indicateur crucial du vieillissement de la population. En incluant le jeu des naissances dans la dynamique, ce travail de simulations, basé sur les données de l’OMS, permet de compléter la littérature existante sur les causes de décès qui se focalise traditionnellement sur des indicateurs de mortalité.Les deux derniers chapitres étudient plus particulièrement l’hétérogénéité des popula- tions. Le Chapitre 5, basé sur Boumezoued et al. (2015), propose de mesurer l’hétérogénéité de la mortalité dans les données de l’Échantillon Démographique Permanent de l’INSEE. Dans le cadre de cette contribution d’adaptation de méthodes statistiques et de sa mise en oeuvre sur données réelles, nous proposons une méthode d’estimation paramétrique par maximum de vraisemblance pour les modèles multi-états qui prend en compte à la fois la censure par intervalle, caractéristique des données longitudinales issues du recensement, et également le retour dans les états intermédiaires. Enfin, le Chapitre 6, tiré de Boumezoued (2015a), reprend le modèle général du Chapitre 2 dans lequel les individus peuvent donner naissance, changer de caractéristiques et décéder. La contribution de cette partie théorique est d’étudier le comportement de la population lorsque les caractéristiques individuelles changent fréquemment. Nous établissons un thèorème limite en grande population pour le processus de pyramide des âges, dont le comportement est alors décrit par des taux de naissance et mort agrégés sur la structure stable en terme de caractéristiques.

This thesis focuses on population dynamics models and their applications, on one hand to demography and actuarial science, and on the other hand to Hawkes processes. This work explores through several viewpoints how population structures evolve over time, both in terms of ages and characteristics. In five chapters, we develop a common philosophy which studies the population at the scale of the individual in order to better understand the behavior of aggregate quantities.The first chapter introduces the motivations and details the main contributions in French. In Chapter 2, based on Bensusan et al. (2010–2015), we survey the modeling of characteristic and age-structured populations and their dynamics, as well as several examples motivated by demographic issues. We detail the mathematical construction of such population processes, as well as their link with well known deterministic equations in demography. We illustrate the simulation algorithm on an example of cohort effect, and we also discuss the role of the random environment. The two following chapters emphasize on the importance of the age pyramid. Chapter 3 uses a particular form of the general model introduced in Chapter 2 in order to study Hawkes processes with general immigrants. In this theoretical part based on Boumezoued (2015b) we use the concept of age pyramid to derive new distribution properties for a class of fertility functions which generalize the popular exponential case. Chapter 4 is based on Arnold et al. (2015) and analyses the impact of cause-of-death mortality changes on the population age pyramid, and in particular on the dependency ratio which is crucial to measure population ageing. By including birth patterns, this numerical work based on WHO data gives additional insights compared to the existing literature on causes of death focusing only on mortality indicators.The last two chapters focus on population heterogeneity. The aim of Chapter 5, based on Boumezoued et al. (2015), is to measure mortality heterogeneity on French longitudinal data called Échantillon Démographique Permanent. In this work, inspired by recent ad- vances in the statistical literature, we develop a parametric maximum likelihood method for multi-state models which takes into account both interval censoring and reversible tran- sitions. Finally, Chapter 6, based on Boumezoued (2015a), considers the general model introduced in Chapter 2 in which individuals can give birth, change their characteristics and die. The contribution of this theoretical work is the analysis of the population behavior when individual characteristics change very often. We establish a large population limit theorem for the age pyramid process, whose dynamics is described at the limit by birth and death rates which are averaged over the stable population composition.; Cette thèse porte sur la modélisation de la dynamique des populations et de ses appli- cations, à la démographie et l’actuariat d’une part, et à l’étude des processus de Hawkes d’autre part. Ces travaux de thèse proposent d’explorer à travers différents points de vue comment se déforme la structure d’une population, tant concernant la répartition des âges que sa composition en terme de caractéristiques. À travers cinq chapitres, nous déclinons une même philosophie qui, pour comprendre comment évoluent des quantités agrégées, propose d’étudier la dynamique de la population à une échelle plus fine, celle de l’individu.Après un premier chapitre introductif en langue française, détaillant les motivations et les principales contributions, nous proposons d’abord dans le Chapitre 2 la description du cadre général de la modélisation dynamique aléatoire de populations structurées en caractéristiques et en âges, sur la base de Bensusan et al. (2010–2015), ainsi que plusieurs exemples motivés par les applications démographiques et actuarielles. Nous détaillons la construction mathématique de tels processus ainsi que le lien avec les équations détermi- nistes classiques en démographie. Nous discutons également l’impact de l’hétérogénéité sur l’exemple d’un effet cohorte, ainsi que le rôle de l’environnement aléatoire.Les deux chapitres suivants mettent en avant l’importance de la pyramide des âges. Le modèle de population général issu du Chapitre 2 est décliné dans le Chapitre 3 pour étudier des processus de Hawkes avec immigrants généraux, pour lesquels nous exploitons le concept de pyramide des âges. Dans cette étude théorique, basée sur Boumezoued (2015b), nous établissons de nouveaux résultats sur leur distribution pour une classe de fonctions qui généralisent le cas exponentiel étudié jusqu’ici. Dans le Chapitre 4, qui reprend Arnold et al. (2015), nous analysons l’impact de changements dans la mortalité par causes de décès sur la dynamique de la pyramide des âges, et en particulier sur le ratio de dépendance qui est un indicateur crucial du vieillissement de la population. En incluant le jeu des naissances dans la dynamique, ce travail de simulations, basé sur les données de l’OMS, permet de compléter la littérature existante sur les causes de décès qui se focalise traditionnellement sur des indicateurs de mortalité.Les deux derniers chapitres étudient plus particulièrement l’hétérogénéité des popula- tions. Le Chapitre 5, basé sur Boumezoued et al. (2015), propose de mesurer l’hétérogénéité de la mortalité dans les données de l’Échantillon Démographique Permanent de l’INSEE. Dans le cadre de cette contribution d’adaptation de méthodes statistiques et de sa mise en oeuvre sur données réelles, nous proposons une méthode d’estimation paramétrique par maximum de vraisemblance pour les modèles multi-états qui prend en compte à la fois la censure par intervalle, caractéristique des données longitudinales issues du recensement, et également le retour dans les états intermédiaires. Enfin, le Chapitre 6, tiré de Boumezoued (2015a), reprend le modèle général du Chapitre 2 dans lequel les individus peuvent donner naissance, changer de caractéristiques et décéder. La contribution de cette partie théorique est d’étudier le comportement de la population lorsque les caractéristiques individuelles changent fréquemment. Nous établissons un thèorème limite en grande population pour le processus de pyramide des âges, dont le comportement est alors décrit par des taux de naissance et mort agrégés sur la structure stable en terme de caractéristiques.

In this paper, we examine why risk-based policy instruments have failed to improve the proportionality, effectiveness, and legitimacy of healthcare quality regulation in the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Rather than trying to prevent all possible harms, risk-based approaches promise to rationalise and manage the inevitable limits of what regulation can hope to achieve by focusing regulatory standard-setting and enforcement activity on the highest priority risks, as determined through formal assessments of their probability and consequences. As such, risk-based approaches have been enthusiastically adopted by healthcare quality regulators over the last decade. However, by drawing on historical policy analysis and in-depth interviews with 15 high-level UK informants in 2013–2015, we identify a series of practical problems in using risk-based policy instruments for defining, assessing, and ensuring compliance with healthcare quality standards. Based on our analysis, we go on to consider why, despite a succession of failures, healthcare regulators remain committed to developing and using risk-based approaches. We conclude by identifying several preconditions for successful risk-based regulation: goals must be clear and trade-offs between them amenable to agreement; regulators must be able to reliably assess the probability and consequences of adverse outcomes; regulators must have a range of enforcement tools that can be deployed in proportion to risk; and there must be political tolerance for adverse outcomes.

When it comes to negotiating over a collective dismissals plan, the French national legal framework explicitly encourages social partners to favour outplacement services over significant indemnity payments. However, significant above-mandatory redundancy payments are commonly granted to laid-off workers. Based on these factual observations, this article aims to identify the antecedent conditions, or, more precisely, the combinations of conditions, that lead to the granting of a large severance pay. We conducted a qualitative comparative analysis (Crisp set QCA) methodology applied to 20 monographs on downsizing operations that took place in France during the 2000s. The results show that above-mandatory severance payments are closely related to two major dimensions characterizing the economic and social context in which restructuring processes are carried out. The first one is about the balance of power prevailing between the company decisionmakers and the employees. This balance of power dimension is subsumed by two distinct conditions: the availability of financial resources and the presence of active unions. The second dimension relates to the moral and economic damages inflicted upon laid-off workers. This dimension is intrinsically connected to two downsizing process features, i.e. the perceived degree of legitimacy associated with the downsizing process and the degree of employability associated with the laid-off workers. Most notably, it appears that none of the identified conditions is sufficient by itself to induce the payment of a significant above-mandatory indemnity. However, some causal conditions may induce the outcome variable when they are combined with some specific other antecedent conditions. Thus, our research shows that the financial resource condition leads to the granting of an above-mandatory indemnity either in conjunction with a low degree of worker’s employability or in conjunction with both a weak perceived legitimacy of the restructuring process and the presence of active unions., Les dispositifs légaux français qui encadrent les suppressions d’emplois incitent explicitement les partenaires sociaux à négocier des accords mettant l’accent sur le reclassement des salariés licenciés plutôt que sur l’indemnisation financière. Pourtant, l’octroi d’indemnités supra-légales semble bien inscrit dans les pratiques des entreprises françaises. Cet article tente d’identifier les conditions ou, plus précisément, les combinaisons de conditions qui conduisent à l’octroi d’indemnités supra-légales. Pour cela, nous avons mené une analyse qualitative comparée (Crisp set QCA) de 20 cas de restructurations ayant eu lieu en France au cours de la décennie 2000. Les résultats montrent que les indemnités de licenciement sont conditionnées par deux dimensions principales du contexte économique et social dans lequel se déroulent les suppressions d’emplois. D’une part, l’instauration d’un rapport de force favorable aux salariés est nécessaire. Celui-ci dépend soit de la disponibilité de ressources financières, soit de la présence de syndicats actifs. D’autre part, il est nécessaire qu’il y ait un préjudice moral ou économique infligé aux salariés licenciés. Le préjudice moral est lié à la légitimité de la décision de suppression d’emploi. Le préjudice économique s’avère lié à l’employabilité des salariés concernés. Nous montrons plus précisément qu’aucune de ces conditions n’est suffisante pour expliquer à elle seule les indemnités supra-légales, mais qu’il faut s’attacher à l’identification de combinaisons de conditions. Il en ressort que la disponibilité de ressources financières est une condition nécessaire au versement d’indemnités supra-légales, mais qu’elle doit être combinée soit avec une faible employabilité des salariés soit avec une combinaison associant une faible légitimité de l’opération ainsi que la présence de syndicats actifs et organisés., En situación de negociación de un plan colectivo de despidos, el marco legal en Francia incita explícitamente las partes a favorecer los servicios de recolocación en lugar de los pagos significativos de indemnización. Sin embargo, es muy común de otorgar indemnizaciones superiores al monto legal a los trabajadores despedidos. Basado en estas observaciones factuales, este artículo trata de identificar las condiciones precedentes o, más precisamente, las combinaciones de condiciones que llevan al otorgamiento de un monto mayor de indemnización. Se realizó un análisis cualitativo comparativo aplicando la metodología (Crisp set QCA) a 20 monografías sobre las operaciones de reducción de personal llevadas a cabo durante la década 2000. Los resultados muestran que el pago de indemnizaciones superiores al monto legal está estrechamente vinculado a dos dimensiones características del contexto económico y social en el que se llevan a cabo los procesos de restructuración. La primera se refiere a la correlación de fuerzas predominante entre los decidores de la compañía y los empleados. Dicha correlación de fuerzas depende, de un lado, de la disponibilidad de recursos financieros y del otro, de la presencia activa de sindicatos. La segunda dimensión incumbe los daños y perjuicios morales y económicos infligidos a los trabajadores despedidos. Esta dimensión está intrínsecamente vinculada a dos características del proceso de reducción de personal: (1) la percepción de legitimidad del proceso de reducción de personal y (2) el nivel de empleabilidad de los trabajadores despedidos. El análisis hace resaltar que ninguna de las condiciones identificadas es suficiente en sí misma para explicar el pago de indemnizaciones significativamente superiores al monto legal. Pero ciertas condiciones causales pueden inducir el resultado si son combinadas con otras condiciones específicas precedentes. Así, los resultados de nuestra investigación muestran que la disponibilidad de los recursos financieros lleva a otorgar indemnizaciones superiores al monto legal, solamente si otra condición es también presente: sea un nivel bajo de empleabilidad de los trabajadores, sea un nivel bajo de legitimidad percibida del proceso de restructuración combinado a la presencia activa de sindicatos.

In a world of persistently low interest rates, investors look for ways to increase yield without bearing the full volatility and risk of principal loss of the equities market. A great variety of structured products exist, many tied to stocks, with various features to modify risk exposure or lower cost. Risk may be reduced by incorporating specified coupon rates and principal guarantees, whereas cost can be lowered—and yield increased—by making the payoff path-dependent or the coupon payment contingent on some other factor or the principal protection less than 100%. These features, in turn, may be moderated by cumulating skipped coupons and paying them all when a scheduled payment is actually made, by mitigating incomplete downside protection by conversion into the underlying stock when the principal value falls too far, by adding some equity participation on the upside, or by incorporating “best-of” or “worst-of” contingencies into the payoff. Remarkably, Guillaume provides a general analytical valuation model that can price an “auto callable structured product” with all of these features.

Cette thèse traite de portefeuilles d’assurance avec risques dépendants en théorie du risque.Le premier chapitre traite les modèles avec risques équicorrelés. Nous proposons une structure mathématique qui amène à une fonction génératrice de probabilités particulière (fgp) proposé par Tallis. Cette fgp implique des variables équicorrelées. Puis, nous étudions l’effet de ce type de dépendance sur des quantités d’intérêt dans la littérature actuarielle telle que la fonction de répartition de la somme des montants des sinistres, les primes stop-loss et les probabilités de ruine sur horizon fini. Nous utilisons la structure proposée pour corriger des erreurs dans la littérature dues au fait que plusieurs auteurs agissaient comme si la somme des variables aléatoires équicorrélés aient nécessairement la fgp proposée par Tallis. Dans le second chapitre, nous proposons un modèle qui combine les modèles avec chocs et les modèles avec mélanges communs en introduisant une variable qui contrôle le niveau du choc. Dans le cadre de ce nouveau modèle, nous considérons deux applications où nous généralisons le modèle de Bernoulli avec choc et le modèle de Poisson avec choc. Nous étudions, dans les deux applications, l’effet de la dépendance sur la fonction de répartition des montants des sinistres, les primes stop-loss et les probabilités de ruine sur horizon fini et infini. Pour la deuxième application, nous proposons une construction basée sur les copules qui permet de contrôler le niveau de dépendance avec le niveau du choc.Dans le troisième chapitre, nous proposons, une généralisation du modèle classique de Poisson où les montants des sinistres et les intersinistres sont supposés dépendants. Nous calculons la transformée de Laplace des probabilités de survie. Dans le cas particulier où les montants des sinistres ont une distribution exponentielle nous obtenons des formules explicites pour les probabilités de survie. Dans le quatrième chapitre nous généralisons le modèle classique de Poisson en introduisant de la dépendance entre les intersinistres. Nous utilisons le lien entre les files fluides et le processus du risque pour modéliser la dépendance. Nous calculons les probabilités de survie en utilisant un algorithme numérique et nous traitons le cas où les montants desinistres et les intersinistres ont des distributions de type phase., Doctorat en Sciences, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In recent years, index-based insurance has been offered to smallholder farmers in the developing world to protect against common shocks such as weather shocks. Despite their attractive properties, these products have met with low demand. We consider the frequent situation where farmers are members of groups with common interests. We show that this creates strategic interactions among group members in deciding to insure that reduce the demand for insurance for two reasons. One is free riding due to positive externalities on other group members when a member chooses to insure. The other is potential coordination failure because it may not be profitable for a risk-averse member to insure if the other members do not. As a consequence, we argue that the demand for insurance against common shocks could increase if the insurance policy were sold to groups rather than to individuals.

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework programme (FP7/2007-2013) Grant Agreement no. 230589 and from the Chair “Risk markets and value creation” financed by SCOR at IDEI.; International audience; In this paper, we derive a set of simple conditions such that ambiguity aversion always raises the demand for self-insurance and the insurance coverage, but decreases the demand for self-protection. We also characterize the optimal insurance design under ambiguity aversion, and exhibit a case in which the straight deductible contract is optimal as in the expected utility model.

International audience; In pharmacoepidemiology studies, the nature of the research question will dictate the choice of methodological approach and the conditions for optimizing the level of evidence. Thus, to document the treated population and the modes of use of a new drug in real-life prescribing conditions, a descriptive approach through cross-sectional or longitudinal studies conducted on databases, or else ad-hoc studies, will be preferred. On the other hand, evaluation of the real-life "effectiveness" of a new drug will be based on cohort, case-control or scientific modeling, depending on the drug and the disease of interest. For questions involving drug risks and safety, it is the adverse effects profile that will guide the choice of study design, both for identification of the effect (signal) and assessment of causation. In all cases, in the post-marketing authorization (MA) setting, the evidence acquired in pre-MA studies serves as the basis for generating hypotheses. Whatever the research question and the method chosen to address it, the potential biases and their impact on the results need to be identified. In certain cases, a combination of several complementary approaches may prove preferable to a single study.

Economic data in the literature for brachytherapy are still sparse and heterogeneous, with few controlled prospective studies and a perspective most often limited to those of the provider (health insurances). Moreover, these observation and conclusions are difficult to generalize in France. The prospective health economic studies performed in France in the framework of a national program to sustain innovative and costly therapies (STIC program) launched by the French cancer national institute are therefore of most importance. With the exception of prostate brachytherapy with permanent seeds, the valorisation of the brachytherapy activity by the French national health insurance does not take into account the degree of complexity and the real costs supported by health institutions (i.e. no specific valorisation for 3D image-based treatment planning and dose optimization and for the use of pulsed dose rate brachytherapy).

International audience; This paper conducts an empirical assessment of the theories stating that ownership concentration improves the quality of shareholders’ monitoring. In contrast with other studies, we do not use regressions of risk/performance on ownership concentration. Instead, we build an early warning model of bank distress that includes a leading indicator derived from banks’ share price, the Merton-KMV distance to default (DD). The significance of this indicator depends on the efficacy of shareholders’ monitoring. On a sample of European banks, we show that the predictive power of the DD is satisfactory only when banks’ shareholding is characterized by the presence of blockholders.

Standards setters support that purchase price allocations (PPAs), subsequent to business combinations, enhance financial statement decision-usefulness whereas academics and practitioners challenge this statement. We test the consequences of the quality of PPAs (proxied by the concept of abnormal goodwill) on change in market expectations for 200 major U.S. business combinations. We do not find evidence that PPAs' quality have material impact on change in market expectations, suggesting that market participants fail to fully integrate information content of PPAs. Consistently, we provide evidence that PPAs' quality enables to generate a profitable investment strategy, as cumulated abnormal returns can be systematically generated based on abnormal goodwill recognized in PPAs., Selon les normalisateurs, les PPA (Purchase Price Allocations) réalisés suite à un regroupement d'entreprises, renforcent l'utilité des états financiers, alors que la littérature et les praticiens sont réservés. Nous testons les conséquences sur les anticipations de marché de la qualité des PPA (approchée par le concept de goodwill anormal) sur 200 regroupements aux Etats-Unis. Nous ne mettons pas en évidence que la qualité des PPA a un impact significatif sur les anticipations de marché, suggérant ainsi que les investisseurs échouent à intégrer complètement le contenu informatif des PPA. De même, nous montrons que la qualité des PPA permet de générer une stratégie d'investissement rentable car un goodwill anormal génère systématiquement un rendement anormal cumulé positif.

International audience; We consider a life-cycle model with bequest motives, and assume that the individual does not know his/her survival probability and has maxmin utility preferences; we show that it is optimal not to annuitize but to purchase pure life insurance policies instead.

We assessed how much, if anything, people would pay for a laboratory test that predicted their future disease status. A questionnaire was administered via an internet-based survey to a random sample of adult US respondents. Each respondent answered questions about two different scenarios, each of which specified: one of four randomly selected diseases (Alzheimer's, arthritis, breast cancer, or prostate cancer); an ex ante risk of developing the disease (randomly designated 10 or 25%); and test accuracy (randomly designated perfect or 'not perfectly accurate'). Willingness-to-pay (WTP) was elicited with a double-bounded, dichotomous-choice approach. Of 1463 respondents who completed the survey, most (70-88%, depending on the scenario) were inclined to take the test. Inclination to take the test was lower for Alzheimer's and higher for prostate cancer compared with arthritis, and rose somewhat with disease prevalence and for the perfect versus imperfect test [Correction made here after initial online publication.]. Median WTP varied from $109 for the imperfect arthritis test to $263 for the perfect prostate cancer test. Respondents' preferences for predictive testing, even in the absence of direct treatment consequences, reflected health and non-health related factors, and suggests that conventional cost-effectiveness analyses may underestimate the value of testing.

In this paper, we examine the process of risk commodification involved in the creation of a market for weather derivatives in Europe. We approach this issue through an in-depth qualitative study in which we focus on the commensuration process by which promoters try to draw weather risk into the financial world. By offering a concrete description of a derivatives market as a meeting place between different metrics, our results highlight the failure of a process of commensuration – a phenomenon rarely studied empirically in the literature – and its unexpected results. Compared to existing research, we use the theoretical framework provided by Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) to enrich the literature on commensuration specifically as regards the different forms of agreement to which commensuration attempts can lead. Our results highlight the crucial role of a common interest for commensuration to succeed, and the conditions necessary for this common interest to occur. We conclude that there are limits to the thesis of financial theory, according to which all kinds of risk can be transformed into financial risk, and exchanged on financial markets.

This paper presents a detailed review of the main microeconomic and macroeconomic principles used to measure returns to education. We are also interested in major problems we encountered in empirically applying these models. The change in returns to higher learning in Sub-Saharan education is compared with returns to other levels of education. A meta-analysis method is applied to the results of a series of works on returns to higher education in Sub-Saharan countries. Copyright 2011 , Oxford University Press.

De nombreux problemes en assurance-vie et en finance peuvent etre exprimes en termes d’options d’echange. Ces contrats donnent le droit d’echanger un actif contre un autre a une date fixee au prealable. Ce type d’options est habituellement evalue dans un contexte gaussien qui permet d’obtenir une formule explicite. Cet article etend ce cadre en introduisant des sauts dans le prix d’un sous-jacent. Dans ce cas, les auteurs presentent deux approches differentes pour evaluer ces options d’echange. La premiere est entierement probabiliste et en ce cas, une formule quasi-explicite est obtenue. La seconde est basee sur une transformee generalisee de Fourier et une solution numerique est proposee. Cet article donne une methodologie generale pour evaluer une option d’echange lorsque le prix d’un des actifs sous-jacents presente des sauts. Cela ouvre un vaste champ d’application, particulierement en ce qui concerne les produits structures.

International audience; For the practitioner, choosing diagnosis codes is a non-intuitive operation. Mistakes are frequent, causing severe consequences on healthcare performance evaluation and funding. French physicians have to assign a code to all their activities and are frequently prone to these errors. Given that most of the time and particularly for chronic diseases indexed information is already available, we propose a tool named AnterOcod, in order to support the medical coding task. It suggests the list of most relevant plausible codes, predicted from the patient's earlier hospital stays, according to a set of previously utilized diagnosis codes. Our method applies the estimation of code reappearance rates, based on an equivalent approach to actuarial survival curves. Around 33% of the expected correct diagnosis codes were retrieved in this manner, after evaluating 998 discharge abstracts, significantly improving the coding task.

The target population of a medicine may include different populations that may partially overlap including the population that has been evaluated in the clinical trials, the population for which the medicine provides an actual benefit (SMR), that for which the drug provides an improvement of the actual benefit (ASMR), etc. The definition of the target population in both qualitative and quantitative terms has key public health and economic implications. Recommendations are made to shed light on the definitions, to clarify the requests of the public decision makers and to improve the methods and the sources allowing the quantification of target populations.

An endless leverage certificate (ELC) is a novel retail structured product that gives its holder the right to claim the difference between the value of an underlying security and an interest accruing financing level. An ELC ceases to exist if the underlying breaches a contractual knockout level, if the holder exercises, or if she/he sells it back to the issuer. We use Monte Carlo analysis to value ELCs and find that due to limited liability, a typical ELC written on a typical DAX stock can be worth 0.3% more than its intrinsic value (the difference between the value of the underlying and the financing level). Empirically, we find that in January 2007, the 5129 ELCs issued on the thirty DAX stocks traded at an average premium of 0.67% over the intrinsic Value, and that the median bid-ask spread, expressed as a percentage of the underlying, was 0.18%. For covered warrants and options this spread measure was almost twice as high. Finally, we find that upon knockout, investors received on average 3.2% less than the theoretical knockout value, which is consistent with discontinuous trading of the underyling. Overall, our findings suggest that ELCs complete the market for leverage seeking retail investors. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This study uses the contingent valuation method to elicit individuals' preferences for their own and others' safety in road-tra±c. Whereas one group is asked about a private safety device for themselves, other groups are asked about safety devices for their children, household, relatives and the public. Support is found for the hypothesis that individuals are not purely sel¯sh when it comes the safety of others. Key words Safety; Willingness to pay; Altruism; Road-tra±c JEL codes

We consider Common Agency games of moral hazard and we suggest that there is only a very weak support for the standard restriction to take-it or leave-it contracts.

06067 - Existe également en français; The last system of international indicators on which Norberto Bottani and I worked, together with other colleagues, concerned the equity of education systems in European countries (CERESE, 2995, 2003). I would like to take this opportunity to reply to two objections raised regarding that work. The first is that, as an objective, equity takes second place to efficiency. For example, the low dispersion of literacy scores among Italian students is immediately overridden, in the minds of the country's auditors, by their low average score, on the basis of the argument that a health system that cures a given illness better for rich patients than for poor patients is preferable to one that fails to cure it at all, if only because there is a hope in the former case that the benefits of the cure may later be extended to all. Does the same go for education ?

Successful demonstration of the effects of health promotion calls for systematic documentation and comparison of the outcome of different measures and projects. A model has been developed in the form of an outcome categorisation system for this purpose and is presented here. The model includes four categories covering the intermediate outcomes of health promotion measures, and three categories for outcomes at the level of health determinants (conditions necessary for health). Each category includes three to four sub-categories, for which examples of possible indicators are presented. The model can be applied both in the planning and in the evaluation stage of a project. This makes it possible for health promotion agencies and institutions responsible for funding and promotion to obtain a general overview of the outcome of their work.

The literature on contracting has focused on the power of the contract and especially the mix of fixed price and cost reimbursement type contracts. For health care services there is the additional issue of what the base of any fixed price contract should be ; e.g., for hospitalized patients, per day, per stay, or per episode (including post acute care). More aggregate bases are more powerful. I suggest that more aggregate bases are more likely optimal, the less independent are various inputs (typically, the more substitutable). I illustrate with the experience of the American Medicare program.

International audience; We propose a simple liability rule when several agents are jointly responsible for monitoring a risky economic activity or certifying its security. Examples are safety controls for drugs or technical systems, environmental liability, or air safety accidents. The agents have private knowledge of their monitoring or avoidance costs. We adopt a mechanism design approach to ensure optimal monitoring incentives. Our innovation is to focus on information that is available or can be proxied when harm has occurred and when typically regulators and/or courts deliberate over fines and damages. By contrast, earlier proposals require more estimations of hypothetical accident scenarios and their ex ante probabilities. We argue that our rule promises substantial savings in information costs for courts and regulators and excludes likely sources of errors.

In France, a personal borrower is encouraged to subscribe an insurance policy when he (she) applies for a loan. The insurance contract is generally concluded between the lending bank and an insurance company, the borrower only adhering to the contract. The contract is designed to provide the bank a repayment whenever a borrower in the « pool of borrowers » defaults because of a risk associated with human life (death, disease, working disability, unemployment). The insurance contract is often refered to as a « group contract ». Insurance contracts covering the default on a loan raise two questions. The first one is independant of their design : why do they exist ? is the « group contract » superior to a contract directly concluded between the loan, Lavigne Anne. Pourquoi et comment assurer les crédits ?. In: Revue d'économie financière, n°38, 1996. Finance et Europe : Questions de confiance ? pp. 135-148.

Expected income and risk for dairymen was computed for alternatives of sire selection. Mean transmitting abilities for dollars of young unproven and old progeny tested bulls were considered. Accuracy of progeny test (Repeatability), total number of bulls, used in the herd were varied. A prediction function for semen price was estimated for progeny tested bulls from their Repeatabilities. A constant semen price was assumed for young bulls. Expected income of a sire transmitted to a daughter and her offspring was estimated by an index including semen price and income over feed cost. Risk was defined as standard deviation of income. With the same mean transmitting abilities for young and old bulls, expected income increased with increasing proportion of young bulls because of higher semen price for old bulls and increasing semen price with increasing Repeatability. When transmitting abilities of old bulls are larger than those of young bulls, expected income for old bulls still could be smaller because of higher semen costs. But it also could be larger if expected income is large enough to offset the difference in semen price. Risk increased with increasing utilization of young bulls, decreasing Repeatability of old bulls, and decreasing total number of bulls used. The decision of what selection alternative to use depends on the dairyman's individual weighting of expected income versus risk.

Research into the determining factors in arson cases has traditionally focused on factors linked to the characteristics of the burned building. One of our basic hypotheses is that deliberately set fires also have an underlying economic motivation. In this case, the present study confirms the hypothesis that there appears to be an indisputable link between the unemployment rate and mortgage burdens and arson rates, regardless of the phase of the economic cycle in which the arson occurs. Moreover, the study corroborates the idea that increased surveillance is necessary in areas presenting a higher risk of fraud and having a specific socioeconomic and financial profile. A lower incidence of arson and the improvement of insurers ' ability to predict losses due to arson could lead to a significant reduction in the number of claims, and consequently, in the amount of premiums. By looking more specifically at the economic motivations influencing arson throughout the different phases of the economic cycle, this study evokes the establisment of a forecasting system that would allow insurance companies to identify the areas of Montreal that present a higher risk level for arson, thus allowing them to establish their rates in a more equitable manner.

In this article we describe preliminary estimates of a model of the Canadian financial system. At the present time, the model explains the behaviour of the authorities, the chartered banks, the public, and the trust and mortgage loan companies. The variables explained include monetary aggregates, several interest rates, and the major assets of the chartered banks and of the trust and mortgage loan companies. The model differs from existing Canadian models in that we use monthly data rather than quarterly or annual data. We think the shorter observation period permits the econometric estimates to capture the dynamic adjustment processes more accurately. In particular, the mean lags implied by our equations tend to be considerably shorter than those in existing models. Another difference with conventional models is the larger influence given to asset and liability management of the chartered banks in the determination of short-term interest rates. The model is intended primarily for forecasting, and results are presented which indicate its usefulness in that regard.

The financial model presented in the article attempts to further integrate capital budgeting into the firm's overall financial planning policy. Although it is an extension and generalization of Bernhard and Weingartner's previous models, it differs from these works by some basic assumptions related to both the objective function and constraint set. First, the objective function stresses the growing role of managerial discretion as opposed to the common assumption of maximizing shareholders' wealth. In particular we assume that managers wish to maximize the size of the firm under their control at the end of some future time horizon. Since net cash flows of the investment projects selected are sources of future investment funds, the managers try to keep the shareholders' dividends to a minimum level, sufficient enough however to pacify them. Secondly, the model constraints embody the complete set of financial instruments available to the corporation managers: in a sense, this enlarges the previous models' short-term external financing facilities by considering simultaneously the alternative long-term external financial instruments, namely equity and bond issues. In the latter case, the refunding features are incorporated in the constraints. The constraints also imply that managers prefer steady growth of net cash flows through time. This contrasts with the usual maximization approach which has been shown to favor long-term investment projects with somewhat more erratic net cash flows. The derivation of the Kuhn and Tucker conditions for the model allows us to show the impact of the opportunity cost of the various instruments on that of the liquidity requirement and the investment projects selection criterion. Finally, the duality properties also highlight the reciprocal relationships existing between the various opportunity costs, both internal and external.