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There has been an increasingly prevalent message that data regarding costs must be included in conservation planning activities to make cost-efficient decisions. Despite the growing acceptance that socioeconomic context is critical to conservation success, the approaches to embedded economic and financial considerations into planning have not significantly evolved. Inappropriate cost data is frequently included in decisions, with the potential of compromising biodiversity and social outcomes. For each conservation planning step, this essay details common mistakes made when considering costs, proposing solutions to enable conservation managers to know when and how to include costs. Appropriate use of high-quality cost data obtained at the right scale will improve decision-making and ultimately avoid costly mistakes. More than two decades have passed since the initial push to consider economic costs in conservation. This Essay investigates why more progress has not been made and highlights common mistakes made when selecting, estimating, and including costs in conservation decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's complex economic environment, individuals and households alike grapple with the challenge of financial planning. This paper introduces novel methodologies for both individual and cooperative (household) financial budgeting. We firstly propose an optimization framework for individual budget allocation, aiming to maximize savings by efficiently distributing monthly income among various expense categories. We then extend this model to households, wherein the complexity of handling multiple incomes and shared expenses is addressed. The cooperative model prioritizes not only maximized savings but also the preferences and needs of each member, fostering a harmonious financial environment, whether they are short-term needs or long-term aspirations. A notable innovation in our approach is the integration of recommendations from a large language model (LLM). Given its vast training data and potent inferential capabilities, the LLM provides initial feasible solutions to our optimization problems, acting as a guiding beacon for individuals and households unfamiliar with the nuances of financial planning. Our preliminary results indicate that the LLM-recommended solutions result in budget plans that are both economically sound, meaning that they are consistent with established financial management principles and promote fiscal resilience and stability, and aligned with the financial goals and preferences of the concerned parties. This integration of AI-driven recommendations with econometric models, as an instantiation of an extended coevolutionary (EC) theory, paves the way for a new era in financial planning, making it more accessible and effective for a wider audience, as we propose an example of a new theory in economics where human behavior can be greatly influenced by AI agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Industrial R&D Project Portfolio Selection Method using a Multi-Objective Optimization Program -- a Conceptual Quantitative Framework. Design/methodology/approach: Research and development (R&D) activities are crucial if companies are to adapt to technology changes, but budget constraints and limited resources often force companies to select a subset of candidate projects through portfolio selection methods. However, existing models for R&D portfolio selection do not adequately consider interdependencies and types of projects, and this can lead to suboptimal selection and misalignment with corporate objectives. Findings: A Multi-Objective Optimisation Program (MOOP) is suggested transcending from classic manpower, time, and financial planning into addition of strategic, skills and commercial objectives. A Pareto front is used as validation mechanism. Research limitations/implications: Project selection processes are widened with select and critical quantitative positions. Potentials remain in areas of team capability, corporate capabilities, deeper skill understanding, and stakeholder engagement. Practical implications: A quantitative validation is often overlooked in PPM project selection over more qualitative or idiosyncratic selection methods. Originality/value: A quantitative validation is often overlooked in PPM project selection over more qualitative or idiosyncratic selection methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate financial management is responsible for constructing, optimizing, and modifying finance-related structures for an unremitting function. The finance optimization model incorporates risk prediction and fund balancing for distinguishable corporate operations. This risk prediction is handled using sophisticated computing models with artificial intelligence and machine learning for self-training and external learning. Therefore, this article introduces a Backpropagation-aided Neural Network for designing an Optimal Risk Prediction (ORP-BNN) to pre-validate existing and new financial imbalances. The risk prediction model is designed to cope with corporate standards and minimum riskless financial management. This is designed as a linear snowfall model wherein the BNN decides the significance between fund allocation and restraining. The snowfall model significantly relies on allocation or restraining, which is achieved by assigning significant weights depending on the previous financial decision outcome. The weight factor is determined using gradient loss functions associated with the computing model. The training process is pursued using different structural modifications used for successful financial management in the past. In particular, the risk thwarted financial planning using a snowfall-like computing model, and its data inputs are used for training optimization. Therefore, the proposed model's successful risk mitigation stands high under prompt decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate whether a lack of planning and future-orientation in financial behavior is associated with a higher mortality risk. Our evidence is based on two nationally representative cohorts of older people living in the United States (n = 11,478) and England (n = 11,298), where we compared individuals' self-reported planning horizons on spending and saving with government mortality records. Controlling for demographics, participants with a 1 SD shorter planning horizon had a 9% greater hazard of dying in the English sample (evaluated over 10 years), and a 7% greater hazard in the US sample (over 22 years). These differences in mortality risk could not be explained by variation in respondent's life expectancy, their financial circumstances or a range of other observable covariates. Similar results are found for self-reported health, with the positive association between longer planning horizons and health strongest for those with fewest financial resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses financial education and its impact on the behavior of young people in Kosovo during their financial planning. It also provides a theoretical overview of financial education, financial planning, and financial experiences. The study was conducted using quantitative methods, with primary data collected through an online questionnaire. The statistical tests used are MANOVA, ANOVA, Paired T-Test, the Chi-square test for goodness-of-fit, and factorial and reliability analysis. We find that the level of education has a positive effect on money management and the creation of a personal financial plan; employment status and sources of income have an essential impact on controlling the financial situation; financial experience has a positive effect on making personal financial decisions. All empirical analyses are original and based on the authors' calculations through econometric models and other research methods. We highlight the importance of financial education in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of financial literacy is increasing faster in today's world. Financial literacy provides individuals with necessary and adequate financial knowledge and makes them professionally aware of managing their finances. It plays a vital role in the economic development of an economy. The study examines the impact of financial literacy on investors' financial decisions, financial planning, selection of financial products, and financial literacy awareness program and its influence on investors' investment decisions. In order to obtain information from the respondents, we employed a questionnaire that was both structured and self-administered. The investigation analyzes the survey responses from 360 respondents in Saudi Arabia. Various statistical methods such as descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, analysis of reliability, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and regression analysis were utilized to evaluate the data obtained. The results obtained in the study indicated that financial literacy has a significant impact on investors' financial decisions, financial planning, and the selection of financial products that influence investors' investment decisions. The research also found that financial literacy is affected by financial literacy awareness programs, which have a favorable influence on the investment decisions made by investors. The study's findings will help prospective investors understand the importance of raising financial knowledge for their future financial goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to provide insights on how to create a sound financial model to secure the financial sustainability of a pan-European distributed research infrastructure (RI). The financial sustainability is a key challenge for any Research Infrastructure (RI) sustained by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) along its construction and implementation process (nearly 10 years) due to its large-scale size and complexity. Therefore, the Horizon 2020 (H2020) and Horizon Europe call dedicated to the different phases of ESFRI RIs requested/request thorough financial calculations, pushing the RIs' members to pay special attention to the financial aspects in order to overcome any financial shortcomings and make sure that these RIs will survive on a long-term with the aim of fulfilling their mission and objectives. In this regard, the article presents the approach applied in showing the long-term financial sustainability of METROFOOD-RI, a future distributed-RI operating in the ESFRI domain of Health & Food. METROFOOD-RI was included in ESFRI Roadmap in 2018 as an Active Project and in May 2022 completed its preparatory phase financed under the H2020 METROFOOD-PP project. It focuses on moving forward to METROFOOD-ERIC and becoming an ESFRI Landmark. National R&D Institute for Food Bioresources - IBA Bucharest is an active member of this RI and it was fully involved in preparing its financial plan, cost book and business plan. The document describes the steps taken in showing the financial sustainability of METROFOOD-ERIC, financial options, costs and revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ex situ ('off‐site') management refers to keeping species in artificial conditions away from their natural habitat and includes captive breeding facilities, botanical gardens and seed banks. There is scope for ex situ programmes to be more commonly used for supplementing or establishing wild populations. However, undertaking ex situ management comes with risks, costs and uncertainties, which must be assessed in the context of available in situ ('on‐site') management options. The PACES (Planning and Assessment for Conservation through Ex situ management) tool tailors the principles of structured decision‐making to the specific problem of assessing and comparing ex situ and in situ management options. We applied the PACES tool to the mahogany glider (Petaurus gracilis), a threatened arboreal marsupial endemic to north Queensland, Australia. Through an expert elicitation process, we predicted the likely benefits of an ex situ and two in situ management options, as compared to a baseline 'do‐nothing' scenario. The 'in situ plus' alternative (where extra resources are dedicated to in situ management) was predicted to result in the largest population increase according to the participants' best estimates. However, this benefit came at a much larger cost than the ex situ alternative, and without the benefit of an ex situ insurance population. The PACES tool assessment allowed the Mahogany Glider Recovery Team to document and plan the financial costs, risks and benefits of potential future management options for the mahogany glider, laying a transparent basis for future assessment and decision‐making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The psychological implication of retirement is underemphasised. This study examined the relationship between proactive personality, social comparison, and retirement anxiety among Nigerian civil servants. The study is a cross-sectional design, using proactive personality, social comparison orientation, and Nigerian pre-retirement anxiety scales. Five hundred and eight staff members in government-owned tertiary institutions with five years or less to go until retirement, and at a mean age of 57.47 (SD = 3.02), were surveyed. The study established that a proactive personality negatively predicted retirement anxiety and that civil servants engage in diverse forms of intrapreneurship/entrepreneurship to augment their savings. The study also revealed that social comparison (opinion) mediated the relationship between proactive personality and retirement anxiety (financial preparedness and social alienation). In addition, the study found that social comparison (opinion and ability) mediated the relationship between proactive personality and retirement anxiety (financial preparedness) in a sequential order. The findings suggest that retirees in Nigeria face complex challenges, including financial unpreparedness, social alienation, and uncertainty. The study highlights the importance of understanding the relationship between personality traits, social comparison, and retirement anxiety in order to develop effective interventions and policies that support retirees in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing awareness of the importance of financial education and literacy in personal economic success, yet not many Generation Z are proficient in this area. The lack of understanding can lead to consequences such as not recognizing the need for greater retirement savings, making poor spending decisions, or when overpaying off high-interest debt. In addition, many of the studies on financial education and literacy among Generation Z remain untapped in the context of China. As a result, the researcher emphasizes the evidence by mining data from the Web of Science database and analyzing the data using bibliometrics and content analysis. Contemporary research on financial education and literacy in the web of science has discovered that it is trending strongly across fields like environmental science, healthcare, energy, and economics, according to bibliometric data. Further investigation has uncovered the important writers, journal sources, and universities in China that are creating such knowledge. Subsequently, the content analysis on the focused area has yielded results related to recent findings from key authors, and how their studies describe the socio-demographic and psychological behavior of Generation Zs. As an implication, China's academic research reveals that Generation Zs' subjective and objective financial education may be absorbed into their financial self-beliefs, which affects how they handle their finances. Thus, financial education is instrumental to help them set clear financial goals and plan for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Financial Planning assistance and training aims to provide knowledge and insight to Darussalam Vocational High School students in financial management. The urgency of this activity is the increasing prevalence of fraudulent investments that require understanding and knowledge of how to manage and plan finances from an early age. The method used in this training focuses on seven stages, namely: determining financial position; set financial goals; make financial planning; simple notes; create a budget; facing credit problems; and make a financial review. Evaluation and assessment use the Pre-Test and Post-Test models with a rating scale from level 1 to level 10. The results of the training show a quantitative increase from an average level 4 to an average level 7. A qualitative increase is an average of 50 %. The limitation of this training lies in the relatively short duration of time. This training and assistance can be further developed to become more complex with a longer duration of time so that the results are more optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is about the determinants of investment decisions among retirables to evaluate their preparedness of retirables in terms of investment before they retire, the perceived factors that influence them to invest, and their knowledge and education in financial management. It also creates an investment planning model that will fit the needs of the individual depending on their income and risk appetite to invest. The study uses a descriptive correlational method, and the results revealed no significant difference between the respondents according to the three determinants (Investment Behavior, Financial Preparedness, and Investment Influencers). Therefore, they do not differ in terms of determinants in making decisions. However, there was a significant relationship between investment determinants of retirables and investment influencers. The correlation of 0.864 between investment determinants and investment influencers for the retirables was highly correlated and statistically significant. The investment determinants influence investment decision-making; thus, it is claimed that determinant factors are extremely important to implement their investment plan for retirement preparedness. Consequently, knowing the investment determinant behavior is the key to practicing Investment planning. It is recommended, therefore, to strengthen the level of financial preparedness and education of employed people at an early age to raise awareness and improve their understanding of financial risks when they are no longer earning (retired) and make necessary investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retirement is a phase of life that every employee will go through when they reach retirement age. Previous studies have shown that financial planning for retirement among the millennial generation in Malaysia is still lacking compared to other countries. Therefore, this study will examine the relationship between financial knowledge and financial behaviour with regard to retirement financial planning among the millennial generation. The research on retirement financial planning involves the components of cash management, savings management, credit management, insurance management, investment management, and estate planning. The survey method using systematic random sampling is applied in this study. The millennial generation is represented in the study by civil servants from the Public Service Department in Putrajaya. A questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument. As a result, a total of 270 respondents were involved in this study. To explain the relationship between financial knowledge and financial behaviour in retirement planning, Pearson Correlation Analysis was used. The results of the study show that only financial behaviour shows a moderately positive and significant relationship with retirement financial planning. Therefore, the implications of the study suggest that behavior should be given attention in ensuring that the millennial generation has the best retirement planning. Attention should be focused more on aspects of credit management and investment planning. This is necessary in order for the millennial generation to make the best financial preparations for their future well-being, particularly when approaching retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research aims to study the financial behavior of students from the Babeș-Bolyai University in the municipality of Cluj-Napoca and the factors that, according to the literature, are contributors to its formation and positive modeling. Several factors were studied using a quantitative paradigm: family financial socialization, the level of financial self-control, and exposure to financial education. The overall picture of the financial behavior of the students who took part in the research (Babeș-Bolyai University students filling a self-administered questionnaire) illustrates a relatively healthy financial behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial education is a topic that has been gaining a lot of prominence in the world. Technological changes, differentiated products, and currency stabilization have made the topic also relevant in Brazil. It was noted a shortage of work with elementary school students. On this, the aim of this paper is to analyze the perception of 9th grade students about financial education in two schools located in Maceió/Al, developing a descriptive research, with a non-probabilistic sample, consisted of 38 students with a closed questionnaire in 2019. It was concluded that over 98% have access to the internet, most of the students said that they have already talked to their relatives about money and believe that it's important to study financial education in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we study a multiproduct multiperiod production planning problem faced by a cash-strapped manufacturer, who utilizes inventory-based financing (IBF) to capture additional demand during peak season, which otherwise will not be met due to cash shortage. Each product has a unique selling season and its production incurs a significant setup cost. We formulate the problem as an integer program and show the special case with one product is NP-hard. By exploiting the inherent structure of three distinct but related decisions, i.e., the production, financing, and working capital allocation decisions, we develop a Lagrangian relaxation-based branch-and-bound procedure to solve the model. Through a series of numerical experiments using real data, this article presents managerial insights into how the manufacturer's optimal production plan could differ with and without IBF. In an optimal plan, we show the profit maximizing strategy for the cash-strapped manufacturer is to overstock and pledge inventories to secure more loans prior to peak demand periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: this paper analyzes how framing, anchoring, and certainty effects may affect the behavior of the consumer of auto insurance. Methods: an experiment was carried out, with the face-to-face application of six versions of a questionnaire with 14 questions, for 163 respondents from an educational institution. Questions were prepared to analyze the existence of the framing effect, the anchoring effect, and the certainty effect, in addition to the deductible effect (present in several insurance products). The theoretical framework of the paper is the behavioral economics. Results: younger people, singles, and men are more prone to risk. Although the findings in general corroborate the evidence in the literature, the results of the certainty effect were contrary to expectations. The payment of the deductible increased the respondents' risk aversion. Conclusions: the existence of biases and heuristics can cause the purchase of insurance to occur in a non-optimal way. Knowledge of the decisionmaking process is important for insurers and consumers. It is also relevant for regulators, in order to subsidize measures aimed at market efficiency and consumer protection, through the design of an appropriate choice architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With COVID-19 still making headlines around the world, many people currently feel uncertain about many aspects of life, including family financial planning and wealth management. Financial planning is important at all times, but it becomes essential during a crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic, which has disrupted people's finances. Some economic consequences are already apparent, but the financially-induced stress caused by the uncertainty is less visible. With the increase in family wealth and size of organizations, there is a comparable increase in their assets. There is considerable demand for professionals to manage these assets and coordinate investment activities in order to maintain growth. This raises the issue of how to increase a wealth management bank's competitive advantages. This study approached the issue by using experts and the application of fuzzy logic and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and multiple criteria decision-making to segment a set of the selection criteria used by prospective customers, to select a wealth management bank that can effectively manage personal wealth. The results showed that the management's learning and growth perspective was the most important factor in respondents' selection of a wealth management bank. This paper also provides managerial practice implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models to price long term loans in the securities lending business are developed. These longer horizon deals can be viewed as contracts with optionality embedded in them. This insight leads to the usage of established methods from derivatives theory to price such contracts. Numerical simulations are used to demonstrate the practical applicability of these models. The techniques advanced here can lead to greater synergies between the management of derivative and delta-one trading desks, perhaps even being able to combine certain aspects of the day to day operations of these seemingly disparate entities. These models are part of one of the least explored, yet profit laden, areas of modern management. A heuristic is developed to mitigate any loss of information, which might set in when parameters are estimated first and then the valuations are performed, by directly calculating valuations using the historical time series. This approach to valuations can lead to reduced models errors, robust estimation systems, greater financial stability and economic strength. An illustration is provided regarding how the methodologies developed here could be useful for inventory management, emissions trading and insurance risk mitigation. All these techniques could have applications for dealing with other financial instruments, non-financial commodities and many forms of uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper features a hybrid dividend payment strategy on an insurance surplus with stochastic income. The hybrid dividend strategy works as follows: A delay-clock starts whenever the surplus up-shoots, due to a premium arrival, to a level between barriers 'k' and ' ℓ ', such that 0 ⩽ u ⩽ k ⩽ ℓ < ∞ . Further, the clock restarts along with each premium or claim arrival, provided the surplus still lies between 'k' and ' ℓ '. However, when the surplus exits to a level outside the range between two barriers, the clock terminates. The insurer pays a dividend of an amount exceeding the level 'k' to shareholders on two scenarios. In one situation, the insurer pays dividend if delay-clock alarms before a premium or claim arrival. In the other situation, the insurer pays dividend instantaneously if surplus exceeds the second barrier ' ℓ '. The aggregate premiums and claims are both following mutually independent compound Poisson processes, both having exponential amount sizes which are further independent to corresponding inter-arrival times. A scheme for determining analytic expressions for piecewise Volterra integral equations, with boundary conditions, which are satisfied by the expected discounted dividend paid before ruin and the Gerber–Shiu function are discussed in detail when the delay-clock also follows an exponential distribution. We discuss a numerical example to show the tractability of the scheme and to brief the impact of hybrid dividend strategy over the classical De Finetti barrier strategy for paying dividends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of statistical and AI methods in civil litigation is an area likely to expand. As with many areas of social science, the data requirements are high but complex, because of the complexity of the legal process and the nature of the causal connections. This paper looks at the early stage of the process where the initial establishment of liability acts as a legal triage which affects the route through the litigation process. A simple model is used in which the training set is the assessment of the probability of liability given hypothetical scenarios in road traffic accidents. The model is augmented by additional "weight of evidence" assessments. The model, once built, is used as a decision support system for claim handlers on a routine basis. The methods can be seen as a way of utilising a special type of expert judgment elicitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the meta-frontier Data Envelopment Analysis and the main concepts of convergence from the economic growth literature (β-convergence and σ-convergence) to analyze integration and convergence both in efficiency and in technology gap of European Union (EU) insurance markets. We evaluate 10 EU life insurance markets over the 17-year-period 1998–2014. Results show convergence in cost/revenue efficiency among major EU life insurance markets during the sample period. These findings indicate that the least efficient countries in 1998 have shown a higher improvement in cost/revenue efficiency than the most efficient countries in the same year as well as that the dispersion of the mean efficiency scores among EU life insurance markets decreased over the sample period. We also find convergence in cost/revenue technology gap among these markets, suggesting that they become more technologically homogeneous during the sample period. However, results show that the global financial crisis has led to a slowdown in the progress of integration and convergence in efficiency and technology gap of EU life insurance markets in terms of cost efficiency but not in terms of revenue efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author discusses issues in the U.S. death care industry, particularly the need for families to prepare for future funeral expenses to avoid being forced into poverty due to unexpected deaths of loved ones. Other topics include the feasibility of planning and prepayment of death expenses as a strategy, and the regulation of pre-need prepayment for death care services at the state level.

This paper shares lessons learned from providing planning and technical assistance to the grantees of the Merck Foundation's 5-year, $16 million initiative, Bridging the Gap: Reducing Disparities in Diabetes Care, designed to improve access to high-quality diabetes care and reduce disparities in health outcomes among vulnerable and underserved U.S. populations with type 2 diabetes. Our objective was to co-create, with the sites, financial sustainability plans to sustain their work once the initiative had ended and to improve and/or expand it to serve more patients, better. Financial sustainability is an unfamiliar concept in this context, largely because the current payment system inadequately compensates providers for the value their care models provide to patients and to insurers. Our assessment and recommendations are based on our experiences working with each of the sites on sustainability plans. The sites were diverse in terms of their approaches to clinical transformation and integration of SDOH interventions, geography, organizational context, external environment, and populations served. These factors influenced the sites' capacity to build and implement viable financial sustainability strategies and the eventual plans themselves. Philanthropy has a critical role in investing in providers' capacity to develop and implement financial sustainability plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While portfolio optimization is generally based on the return and risk of a portfolio, goal-based investing primarily focuses on achieving financial goals of individuals, which has become a popular approach in personalized financial planning. While many long-term financial planning models use scenarios for representing uncertainty in future market dynamics, it is subject to the curse of dimensionality. In this study, we propose a goal-based investing model for personalized lifetime financial planning based on robust portfolio optimization, which incorporates multiple goals that occur in different periods with various priorities. Empirical results illustrate how the size of uncertainty sets and risk constraints can be customized for finding the optimal investment and show efficiency in solving a portfolio problem with many stages compared to scenario-based approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insurance plays an important economic and social role through its ability to transfer risk. In this paper, we focus on the largest insurance sector, the automobile sector. We model automobile insurance premia through a top down approach. Our approach is appealing since it defines the dynamics of the aggregate loss in a consistent way, and also provides a coherent definition of the joint distribution of the total losses and the car insurance premium. We show how to make this top down approach computationally tractable by using the class of affine point processes, which are intensity-based jump processes driven by affine jump diffusions. An affine point process is sufficiently flexible to account for both country global infrastructure and driving behaviour. Further it allows for efficient computation and calibration of a large class of insurance products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: considering the current level of transparency in the financial statements of Brazilian insurers, this study sought to assess whether it was possible to estimate the sufficiency of the claims reserves estimated by it. As they are liabilities with an uncertain term or amount, the estimates of these reserves may be underestimated (compromising the insurers) or overestimated (burdening the shareholders), which justifies the research question. Methods: after analyzing the financial statements of 31 insurance companies in Brazil, it was noted that the criteria for disclosing claims development varied substantially. Thus, five insurers were selected that adopted similar procedures and allowed the application of the bootstrapping model to estimate the sufficiency level of the provisions. Results: the application of the model revealed that there are indications that insurers can make use of earnings management through the estimations of the claims reserves, spreading the burden of claims insufficiency risk differently between policyholders and shareholders. Conclusion: there are differences in the relative amount of claims recognized by the insurers, showing a possible earnings management practice being applied through the claims measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom holds that purposivist theories of statutory interpretation solve the problem of tax shelters, because shelters comply with the text but not the purpose of tax statutes. But the predominant form of purposivism in tax scholarship, which combines specific statutory purposes with general structural principles of tax law, cannot separate shelters from ordinary tax planning. Although tax shelters claim benefits that exceed specific purposes and do not align with objective general principles, so do some widely accepted tax strategies. This Article therefore proposes a new framework to go beyond purposivism in tax law, complementing purposivist techniques with pragmatism or doctrinalism. Pragmatism applies explicit policy judgments when statutory purposes run out; doctrinalism applies rules, like canons of construction, that provide determinate answers when statutory purpose is ambiguous. Pragmatism generally leads to better results in any particular case, while doctrinalism provides taxpayers certainty in planning legitimate transactions. This Article lays out how the pragmatic and doctrinalist approaches ought to apply, and when. The ideal compromise is a hybrid: Agencies should primarily apply pragmatic purposivism in ex ante guidance, while agencies and courts should primarily apply doctrinalist purposivism in ex post adjudication. The ex ante/ex post split comports with existing administrative and common law, and it suits the relative strengths of agencies and courts. Ultimately, it gives interpreters the flexibility to deal with pernicious, sophisticated modern tax shelters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article was to evaluate the viability of Universal Life insurance (UL) in Brazil from two perspectives: from the individual viewpoint of policyholders, considering different client profiles and investment scenarios; and from the company viewpoint, verifying whether insurers see sales advantages in UL. Thus, despite the lack of definition of the regulations on these contracts by the Superintendence of Private Insurance (Susep), this article’s contribution lies in evaluating UL – a typically American product – in Brazil, using an entirely actuarial methodology, for policyholders and insurers, according to local parameters. The relevance of the article lies in strengthening the support for individuals, companies, and authorities to evaluate the product and discuss its implementation, even identifying the most favorable profiles and scenarios for its development. Although the UL is an individual modality that is widespread in several countries and its design exploits welldefined attractions, the product has not been explored in the national literature. The methodology adoted in this study used fully actuarial modeling, the internal rate of return (IRR), and profit testing. The study reveals that the Brazilian market for UL is viable, especially due to the higher interest rates compared to countries where the product is already widespread. From a demand perspective, the results indicate that the policyholder would be in a more advantageous position acquiring UL than buying life insurance in the private market and investing the surplus in financial assets, due to the hybrid characteristic of the contract, which enables the use of financial returns as discount factors in the insurance portion and operational charges, reducing the opportunity costs linked to the product. With regard to companies, the profit testing results suggest there are stimuli for the supply of UL, provided the operation has a long-term bias. Altering the mortality pattern, policy type, and the company’s investment profile, all the results point in a similar direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retirement is an important phase of life, bringing with it many challenges in terms of adjustments and changes in lifestyle, self-esteem, friendships, and vocation. In the context of Bangladesh, most of the employees retire after working for many years, therefore their bonding with their work is strong and their life is meaningful once they were attached to work. Therefore, retirement impels to making changes in daily routine, bringing disengagement from work and the individual may enters into a state of devaluation. Retirement may offer an opportunity to establish a more preferable rhythm in life, but, on the other hand, retirement may also lead to some social and personal challenges. The focus of this study is to review and assess the literature towords various dimensions of retirement planning. The literature is reviewed from various articles on retirement planning from various sources which are further synethesised to derive the interpretations. The findings and outcome of the study emphasises on the significance of retirement planning, the importance of financial literacy to smoothen the retirement planning and elements that contributes towards the successful life after retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When individuals, families, and employers select health plans in the United States, they are typically only shown the financial structure of the plans and their provider networks. This variation in financial structure can lead patients to have health plans aligned with their financial needs, but not with their underlying nonfinancial preferences. Compounding the challenge is the fact that managed care organizations have historically used a combination of population-level budget impact models, cost-effectiveness analyses, medical necessity criteria, and current medical consensus to make coverage decisions. This approach to creating and presenting health plan options does not consider heterogeneity in patient and family preferences and values, as it treats populations as uniform. Similarly, it does not consider that there are some situations in which patients are price-insensitive. We seek to highlight the challenges posed by presenting health plans to patients in strictly financial terms, and to call for more consideration of nonfinancial patient preferences in the health plan design and selection process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of economic statecraft is at a high-water mark. The United States uses sanctions, tariffs, and import and export controls more than ever before. These tools have problems, though. They impose financial costs on domestic interests. They can induce retaliation by target states. And overuse of these tools could drive the United States from its central position in the global financial and economic system, undermining the effectiveness of U.S. economic statecraft in the long run. But there is an underappreciated tool that could perform valuable foreign policy work: tax law. We argue that tax law holds promise to advance U.S. foreign policy interests and that it is especially important to deploy tax tools now. Tax law has distinctive features that make it both a partial substitute and a partial complement to other tools of economic coercion, which means that it can extend the influence of U.S. economic power while reducing the risk of overusing other economic tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on answering the question of whether or not there is a correlation between Financial Education funneling specifically to an individual's Personal Finance and Quality of Life at Work (QWL), from data collection through questionnaires via Google form targeting the servers of a public HEI of basic, technical and technological education. The questionnaire was divided into two approaches, section 1 that focuses more on socioeconomic issues and section 2 addressing personal finance issues and Quality of Life at Work using the Likert Scale method. With the results found it is possible to realize that despite the high level of qualification and income of respondents, there is no culture of saving and financial planning. A considerable part of the respondents spend more than their income, thus increasing the possibility of using third party resources or default. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the financial literacy level of Indian professional women and its relation to their retirement planning behavior. We use factor analysis and the Rasch model to evaluate the validity and reliability of a financial literacy scale. Additionally, we use multiple regression to examine the association between demographic characteristics and financial literacy with retirement planning. Our results reveal that the respondents display low levels of financial literacy as reflected by a lack of awareness about both basic and advanced financial concepts. Further, a woman's age, income, profession (financial), and understanding of advanced financial concepts are key factors associated with retirement planning behavior. The findings have implications for financial planning professionals, advisors, regulators, and policymakers in guiding women to make better retirement decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study an optimal reinsurance-investment problem with partial information and common shock dependence under the mean-variance criterion for an insurer. The insurer has two dependent classes of insurance business, which are subject to a common shock. We consider the optimal reinsurance-investment problem under complete information and partial information, respectively. We formulate the complete information problem within a game theoretic framework and seek the equilibrium reinsurance-investment strategy and equilibrium value function by solving an extended Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman system of equations. For the partial information problem, we first transform it to a completely observable model by virtue of the filtering theory, then derive the equilibrium strategy and equilibrium value function by using the methods similar to those for the complete information problem. In addition, we illustrate the equilibrium reinsurance-investment strategies by numerical examples and discuss the impacts of model parameters on the equilibrium reinsurance-investment strategies for both the complete information and partial information cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contractors are often simultaneously subject to capital shortages and resource scarcities in construction projects, forcing them to rely on loans to offset cash deficits during project execution. However, few studies have proposed exact or heuristic methods to deal with the financed-based and resource-constrained project scheduling problem (FBRCPSP). This study aims at developing flexible heuristics for the FBRCPSP. To address the FBRCPSP, a mathematical model is first constructed to maximize a project's profit considering financing costs, then modified serial schedule scheme (MSSGS) and modified parallel schedule scheme (MPSGS) heuristics are designed to gain a feasible project schedule and its financial plan while complying with feasibilities of the precedence relationship, resource constraints, and credit limits concurrently. Moreover, the proposed heuristics, implemented as part of a genetic algorithm (heuristics-based GA) can be applied to solve the optimization model of the FBRCPSP. In two case studies, the results showed that the heuristics-based GA adequately explored the feasible solution space so that it could obtain the best solutions near those from the integer programming (IP) technique (By optimization software CPLEX version 12.8) and outperformed the previous precedence-preserving GA in terms of solution quality and computational time. Finally, the developed heuristics can devise or update schedules and the corresponding cash flow and resource-demand profiles, helping practitioners achieve expected profits and implement project control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2010 Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility to states' residents with incomes below the federal poverty line, creating both opportunities and challenges to hospitals in states that adopted the new Medicaid eligibility. This article explores the effect of Medicaid expansions on nonprofit hospitals. Using data from Internal Revenue Service and a difference-in-differences design, this article examines the impact of the expansions on the number of, contributions to, and profitability of nonprofit hospitals. The results suggest that Medicaid expansions did not affect the number and profitability of nonprofit hospitals; however, the expansions were associated with a reduction in contributions to certain types of hospitals by around 23%. Therefore, the effects of policy changes vary by the type of nonprofit hospitals, which then need to find better strategies to cope with these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial self‐efficacy, or the perceived ability to succeed in managing one's personal financial affairs, is fundamental to effective consumer financial decision making. However, little is known about how to improve consumers' financial self‐efficacy and which consumers are more or less responsive to potential policy interventions. We address these questions through an experimental study among US consumers. We find that asking consumers to recall and analyze successful (unsuccessful) experiences regarding the management of their personal finances is associated with higher (lower) financial self‐efficacy. We provide insight into the underlying process of this effect through moderation and mediation analyses. In particular, we show that the effect of a recall and analyze intervention utilizing a successful previous experience is more pronounced for consumers with a more optimistic personality. Finally, consumers who develop greater financial self‐efficacy as a result of our intervention display more self‐control, leading to a higher financial planning propensity and actual planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the average effect of the affordable care act (ACA) Medicaid expansion on cigarette consumption as well as heterogeneous effects by consumer types, depending on whether they use anti‐smoking products and their baseline level of cigarette consumption. Using the Nielsen homescan consumer panel and generalized difference‐in‐differences (GDD) method, we find that anti‐smoking products can induce cigarette smoking among moderate and heavy smokers. However, the ACA Medicaid expansion reduces cigarette smoking through channels other than anti‐smoking products. As a net result, the ACA Medicaid expansion leads to a reduction in smoking. Light smokers are the main beneficiaries of ACA Medicaid expansion—their average cigarette consumption reduces by over one pack per month. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people today will face greater challenges than their predecessors when it comes to financing their economic security in old age. The objective of this work is to establish the relationship, from the perspective of university students, between their expectations of financial planning for retirement and the attitudes and beliefs that promote it. The structural equations method was used to confirm the validity of the construct and the relationship between the variables. The study was developed with a sample of undergraduate students from the National Technological Institute of Mexico in Celaya. Self-perceived financial awareness, future outlook, and parental influence were found to significantly, directly, and positively impact financial expectations for retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to identify managerial reports that are utilized in hospitality enterprises for financial planning and control. The study is designed in qualitative research through the case study method. The data is gathered through semistructured in-depth interviews with six managers who are recruited in a five-star hotel. The data is evaluated by using the thematic analysis technique. In the selection of the participants, the criterion sampling method is adopted in the current study. Findings reveal that international hotel groups have a standardized pyramid reporting flow from the bottom to the top management with the required data flow upon each property (branch). The results of the thematic analysis provide valuable insights unveiling 43 managerial reports according to different types (4), provided data (7), technological methods used in preparation (10), presentation process (8), and reasons to use (5) for managerial reporting. In conclusion, though the types of managerial reports depend on the size and scale of the hospitality enterprises, the process of preparing and presentation of reporting is quite vital to plan and control that also enables make data-driven decisions, monitor the performance, analyze the productivity and efficiency, set strategies, predict the future, and conduct competitive analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solvency II Directive 2009/138/EC requires an insurance and reinsurance undertakings assessment of a Solvency Capital Requirement by means of the so-called "Standard Formula" or by means of partial or full internal models. Focusing on the first approach, the bottom-up aggregation formula proposed by the regulator allows for a capital reduction due to the diversification effect, according to the typical subadditivity property of risk measures. However, once the overall capital has been assessed no specific allocation formula is provided or required in order to evaluate the contribution of each risk source on the overall Solvency Capital Requirement. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we provide a closed formula for capital allocation fully compliant with the Solvency II Capital Requirement assessed by means of the Standard Formula. The solution enables a top-down approach to assess the allocated Solvency Capital Requirement among the risks considered in the Solvency II multilevel aggregation scheme; we demonstrate that the allocation formula adopted is consistent with the Euler allocation principle. Second, a solution is found as a result of an optimum capital allocation problem based on a Return On Risk Adjusted Capital measure; we establish the equivalence between the Return On Risk Adjusted Capital optimization, when the risk adjusted capital is calculated according to the Standard Formula, and the Markowitz mean-variance optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the problem of computing the credit value adjustment (CVA) of a European option in presence of the wrong way risk in a default intensity setting. Namely we model the asset price evolution as solution to a linear equation that might depend on different stochastic factors and we provide an approximate evaluation of the option's price, by exploiting a correlation expansion approach, introduced in Antonelli and Scarlatti (Finance Stoch 13:269–303, 2009). We also extend our theoretical analysis to include some further value adjustments, for instance due to collateralization and funding costs. Finally, in the CVA case, we compare the numerical performance of our method with the one recently proposed by Brigo and Vrins (Eur J Oper Res 269:1154–1164, 2018) and Brigo et al. (Innovations in insurance, risk and asset management, WSPC proceedings, 2018), in the case of a call option driven by a GBM correlated with a CIR default intensity. We additionally compare with the numerical evaluations obtained by other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demographic, economic and social changes that have characterized the last decades, and the dramatic financial crisis that has taken place since 2008, have led to a demand for structural changes in the pension sector and a growing interest in individual pension products. Hence the need, for most elderly people, to liquidate their fixed assets, which are usually the homes in which they live. This highlights products such as reverse mortgages and domestic reversibility plans. Within this context, we propose a contractual scheme where an immediate life annuity is obtained by paying a single-premium in the form of real estate rights (RERs), for example by transferring to an insurer the property title of a house or a similar realty, while keeping its usufruct or a restricted bundle of rights. The level of the installments depends on the fair value of the transferred RER at the contract's issue, the life expectancy of the insured and the expected growth rate of the real estate market value. The contract design is developed by considering the control of the financial risk inherent in the contract itself, because of the prospective changes in the value of the RERs, and the level of the insurer's leverage. Finally, we provide some numerical evidence of the proposed contractual structure, in order to compare the level of the installments according to the house return forecasts in different European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]