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This paper investigates the effects of the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB) credibility on the outcomes of its monetary policy. In this sense, we seek to characterize periods in which the central bank can be categorized as strong (high credibility) or weak (low credibility) through a VAR methodology with an endogenously estimated threshold parameter. The econometric model includes the credibility variable, which defines the regimes, along with the output gap, inflation, 12 months ahead inflation expectations, the policy interest rate, and a long-term interest rate. Our dataset spans from 2003 to 2022, with monthly data. The estimations suggest a significant threshold parameter at 1%, with a value of 1.75 percentage points. Thus, we highlight that the BCB operates in a low credibility regime when inflation expectations exceed the tolerance bands around the inflation target. In fact, this occurred in 19% of the considered sample, equivalent to 46 months. Despite the relatively low frequency of periods in which the Brazilian Central Bank operated in a low credibility context, such a regime should be diligently avoided, as our evidence demonstrates that this regime is associated with a substantial reduction in the effectiveness of monetary policy in the country. We show, for example, that with low credibility, the BCB practically loses the ability to affect productive activity and the dynamics of prices (inflation and inflation expectations). When examining the possible causes of the reduction in the effectiveness of monetary policy conditional on the credibility regimes, we show that this variable can affect the existing trade-off between output and inflation in the economy. In other words, our results suggest that credibility regimes can influence the observed inclinations in the country's Phillips curve. Specifically, we point out that in a low credibility regime, inflation shocks generate recessionary effects on output, and inflation becomes more responsive to increases in inflation expectations, thereby reducing the degree of price rigidity. In conclusion, monetary policy in Brazil has effects that systematically depend on the credibility regime in operation. Therefore, maintaining a high credibility regime should remain a priority for the BCB, as it facilitates the achievement of favorable outcomes, including meeting inflation targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been widely documented that the relationship between crude oil prices and the value of US dollar changes over time (Beckmann et al. in Energy Econ 88:104772, 2020). However, the underlying economic driver for the time-varying relationship is not clear. Based on the competitive storage theory, we provide theoretical evidence that greater inelasticity of market demand for crude oil induced by low inventories is expected to lead to higher responsiveness of crude oil prices to exchange rate changes. We empirically test this hypothesis using the threshold vector autoregressive (TVAR) model and show that crude oil prices respond to shocks to the US dollar exchange rates in an asymmetric manner. Changes in the US dollar exchange rates have greater and more significant influence on crude oil prices in the low-inventory regime than in the high-inventory regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to introduce novel systemic risk indicators based on risk allocation methods employed in actuarial science. We present diverse general approaches for constructing these indicators and utilize them to derive indicators based on commonly used risk measures such as Value at Risk, Tail Value at Risk, and Expectiles. Furthermore, we analyze the influence of the dependence structure on the behavior of these indicators using a range of copula models. To support our findings, we provide numerical illustrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study aims to examine whether life insurance futures can serve as a hedge against the COVID-19 pandemic and whether they have the characteristics of a safe haven under the impact of the health shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. We chose three life insurance stock futures in India and one in Taiwan as samples, including the market index of the two countries and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases as sample variables. We used the growth rate of COVID-19 cases as the threshold variable, estimated the asymmetric threshold vector autoregression model, and found that insurance futures in the regime with a significant growth rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases can hedge against COVID-19 risks; therefore, insurance futures are a safe haven for the market. We further estimated the time-varying parameter vector autoregression model, and the impulse response results showed that insurance futures are a safe haven for COVID-19 pandemic risks.

We study the moments generating function, moments, distributions, VaR, and TVaR of conditional increments of aggregate discounted claims when the counting process is generated by a trend renewal process. The combined effect of the age process and trend is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exogenous uncertainty shocks may have different effects on domestic and foreign consumption under different consumer confidence regimes. In this paper, we specify a threshold vector autoregressive (TVAR) model with different consumer confidence regimes to study the response of endogenous macroeconomic variables to exogenous shocks. The evidence shows that in China, compared to high consumer confidence, low consumer confidence dampens consumption both at home and abroad. However, low consumer confidence benefits exports, the source of foreign consumption. A forecast error variance decomposition analysis further confirms the difference in the effects under different consumer confidence regimes. A comparative analysis shows that consumer confidence is much more influential in the US than in China. Our findings differ from those of earlier works, as we introduce stochastic uncertainty to both the mean and heteroscedasticity and apply counterfactual analysis to show the hazard of ignoring stochastic uncertainty in the traditional threshold vector autoregression. Finally, from the ex ante and ex post perspectives, we provide managerial implications for the authorities to tackle economic issues based on different consumer confidence regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to examine whether life insurance futures can serve as a hedge against the COVID-19 pandemic and whether they have the characteristics of a safe haven under the impact of the health shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. We chose three life insurance stock futures in India and one in Taiwan as samples, including the market index of the two countries and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases as sample variables. We used the growth rate of COVID-19 cases as the threshold variable, estimated the asymmetric threshold vector autoregression model, and found that insurance futures in the regime with a significant growth rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases can hedge against COVID-19 risks; therefore, insurance futures are a safe haven for the market. We further estimated the time-varying parameter vector autoregression model, and the impulse response results showed that insurance futures are a safe haven for COVID-19 pandemic risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The subprime crisis was quite damaging for hedge funds. Using the local projection method (Jordà 2004, 2005, 2009), we forecast the dynamic responses of the betas of hedge fund strategies to macroeconomic and financial shocks—especially volatility and illiquidity shocks—over the subprime crisis in order to investigate their market timing activities. In a robustness check, using TVAR (Balke 2000), we simulate the reaction of hedge fund strategies’ betas in extreme scenarios allowing moderate and strong adverse shocks. Our results show that the behavior of hedge fund strategies regarding the monitoring of systematic risk is highly nonlinear in extreme scenarios—especially during the subprime crisis. We find that countercyclical strategies have an investment technology which differs from procyclical ones. During crises, the former seek to capture non-traditional risk premia by deliberately increasing their systematic risk while the later focus more on minimizing risk. Our results suggest that the hedge fund strategies’ betas respond more to illiquidity uncertainty than to illiquidity risk during crises. We find that illiquidity and VIX shocks are the major drivers of systemic risk in the hedge fund industry.

Step 1: Find HT ht . Additionally, the notation HT ht . Step 2: Verify HT ht . [Extracted from the article]

The subprime crisis was quite damaging for hedge funds. Using the local projection method (Jordà 2004, 2005, 2009), we forecast the dynamic responses of the betas of hedge fund strategies to macroeconomic and financial shocks—especially volatility and illiquidity shocks—over the subprime crisis in order to investigate their market timing activities. In a robustness check, using TVAR (Balke 2000), we simulate the reaction of hedge fund strategies' betas in extreme scenarios allowing moderate and strong adverse shocks. Our results show that the behavior of hedge fund strategies regarding the monitoring of systematic risk is highly nonlinear in extreme scenarios—especially during the subprime crisis. We find that countercyclical strategies have an investment technology which differs from procyclical ones. During crises, the former seek to capture non-traditional risk premia by deliberately increasing their systematic risk while the later focus more on minimizing risk. Our results suggest that the hedge fund strategies' betas respond more to illiquidity uncertainty than to illiquidity risk during crises. We find that illiquidity and VIX shocks are the major drivers of systemic risk in the hedge fund industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the beginnings of the magazines Tvar (Form) and Obrys -Kmen (Contours-Stem), which were founded on the vestiges of defunct periodicals Kmen and Obrys. What they present, for the most part, are editorial statements and positions, as well as metacriticism and profiles on various publications from the diverse medium of literary journals in the context of the newly democratized literary sphere of the 1990s. The aim of this article is to show, using the examples of Tvar and Obrys- -Kmen, how the prominent position and status of official literary criticism and its representatives changed after 1989, as they were cast to the (apparent) periphery of the field.

Heavy tailed distributions have a big role in studying risk data sets. Statisticians in many cases search try to find new or relatively new statistical models to fit data sets in different fields. This article introduced a relatively new heavy-tailed statistical model by using alpha power transformation and exponentiated log-logistic distribution, which called alpha power exponentiated log-logistic distribution. Its statistical properties were derived mathematically such as moments, moment generating function, quantile function, entropy, inequality curves and order statistics. Six estimation methods were introduced mathematically and the behaviour of the proposed model parameters was checked by randomly generated data sets and these estimation methods. Also, some actuarial measures were deduced mathematically such as value at risk, tail value at risk, tail variance and tail variance premium. Numerical values for these measures were performed and proved that the proposed distribution has a heavier tail than others compared models. Finally, three real data sets from different fields were used to show how these proposed models fitting these data sets than other many wells known and related models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flutter test with progression variable speed is actively explored in recent years. This paper proposes an improved Kalman smoothing filter (EM-KS) algorithm based on expectation maximization for the non-stationary characteristics of the signal in this type of experiment, which can effectively improve the estimation accuracy of time-varying parameter modeling. Combining with the flutter time domain criterion, a new method for flutter boundary prediction of flutter test with progression variable speed that can be recursively implemented is given. Finally, the reliability and engineering applicability of this method are validated by numerical simulation and measured data. The results show that the flutter boundary prediction method based on EM-KS does not depend on the assumption of stationary stochastic process, and the accuracy can meet the actual engineering needs.

Copyright of Media4u Magazine is the property of Ing. Jan Chromy, Ph.D. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the relationship between FDI and CO2 emissions in a nonlinear framework using data from countries along the "One Belt, One Road" from 1979 to 2017 as the sample. First, the linear analysis method was used to examine the stability of FDI and CO2 emissions in countries along the "One Belt, One Road." In addition, the BDS (Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman test) method and nonlinear Granger causality test are used to investigate the nonlinear relationship between variables. Finally, a threshold vector autoregressive model (TVAR) is used to analyze the dynamic change mechanism between China's FDI and CO2 emissions, and a threshold vector error correction model (TVECM) is used to test how the variables respond to deviations from equilibrium. Then, the Markov switching model is used to test the robustness of the results. The research results show that China, India, South Africa, and other countries all have a nonlinear causal relationship between FDI and CO2 emissions. At the same time, the comovement of FDI and CO2 emissions in China has obvious structural break features, which are relevant for the underlying regime. Furthermore, the results also show that the adjustment process of the FDI toward equilibrium is highly persistent in the first regime, and CO2 emissions will adjust to an equilibrium state at a faster speed in the second regime. Therefore, this paper puts forward different policy suggestions for different countries. For China, we should pay attention to the long-term benefits of FDI and introduce high-tech green FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro Doppler analysis of spin stabilized objects is of a great significance for attitude estimation and recognition of space targets. In practice, the radar cannot dwell on one target in a long interval continuously. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for the micro Doppler frequency recovery from the discontinuous radar observations, which is referred to as gapped sparse Bayesian learning forward backward time-varying autoregressive (GSBL-FBTVAR) method. First, the sparse optimization model for estimating the sparse FBTVAR model coefficients from gapped samples is established. Then, the sparse FBTVAR model parameters corresponding to the gapped sampled data and the missing data are estimated via an extended sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) algorithm and the missing-data iterative adaptive approach (MIAA). The micro Doppler frequencies are estimated by investigating the relationship between the model parameters and the poles. Finally, the experiments are carried out on the electromagnetic analysis data to verify the proposed GSBL-FBTVAR method.

Discrete distributions have their important in modeling count data in several applied fields such as epidemiology, public health, sociology, medicine, and agriculture. This paper discusses the estimation of the parameters of two discrete models called discrete Poisson-Lindley and discrete Lindley distributions, using several frequentist estimation methods. Parameter estimation can provide a guideline for choosing the best method of estimation for the model parameters, which would be very important to reliability engineers and applied statisticians. The finite sample properties of the estimates are explored using extensive simulation results. The ordering performance of the proposed estimators is determined by the partial and overall ranks of different parametric values. We also derived two important actuarial measures of the two discrete models. A computational study for the two risk measures is conducted. Finally, applications of the two discrete distributions have been examined and compared with other discrete distributions via three data sets from the medicine field including two COVID-19 data sets.

We investigate the optimal reinsurance problems in this paper, specifically, the stop-loss strategies that can bring mutual benefit to both the insurance company and the reinsurance company. The utility improvement constraints are adopted by both contracting parties to guarantee that a reinsurance contract will bring higher expected utilities of wealth to the two participants. We also introduce five risk criteria that reflect the interests of both parties. Under each optimality criterion, we obtain explicit expressions of optimal stop-loss retentions and the corresponding optimised value of objective functions. The upper and lower bounds of expected utility increments under the optimal stop-loss retentions are provided. In the numerical example, we analyse the expected utility improvements under the criterion of minimising total Value-at-Risk. Notable increases in the lower bound of total utility increments are observed after adopting the joint utility improvement constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the beginnings of the magazines Tvar (Form) and Obrys-Kmen (Contours-Stem), which were founded on the vestiges of defunct periodicals Kmen and Obrys. What they present, for the most part, are editorial statements and positions, as well as metacriticism and profiles on various publications from the diverse medium of literary journals in the context of the newly democratized literary sphere of the 1990s. The aim of this article is to show, using the examples of Tvar and Obrys-Kmen, how the prominent position and status of official literary criticism and its representatives changed after 1989, as they were cast to the (apparent) periphery of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carry trade is a speculative financial transaction and a leveraged exchange rate position. Thus, a sudden unwinding in carry trade position leads to a sharp depreciates in the high-interest currency and to increase exchange rate volatility. It can cause global imbalances and financial crises and therefore it can ensue as a source of financial fragility and instability. In this study, we examined effects of unwinding of carry trade on financial variables in regimes when interest rate differential and TL/USD exchange rate volatility are high and low, over the period of January 2005-September 2017 in Turkey. From the results of this study, we concluded that a sudden unwinding of carry trade position led to decrease of interest rate and BİST 100 return and increase of inflation rate in regimes when interest rate differential is high and low. So-called unwinding led to depreciate Turkish Lira and decrease of BİST 100 return in regimes when exchange rate volatility is high and low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of this study is to examine the volatility spillover effects of German, French and American stock market indices on BIST 100 Turkish stock market index. Dataset consists of daily closing price observations starting from January 2, 2004, until February 6, 2017, for indices DAX 30, CAC 40, S&P 500 and BIST 100. E-GARCH(1,1) method has been used to model the conditional variance. Volatility is in a relatively narrow band under a non-crisis economic conjuncture. On the other hand, it is expected that the global risk will be higher during crisis periods. Therefore, the differentiation in the volatility spillover behavior among the markets while under different economic conditions is a rational expectation. In this regard, the Threshold VAR (TVAR) model was used in the study. In the result of the study, it has been observed that the volatility spillover effect on the BIST 100 index is relatively low in the regimes where the global risk is low, whereas the effect is relatively higher in the regime where the global risk is high. Furthermore, results of analysis also indicate that S&P is the most influential index to affect BIST 100 both in high and low-risk regimes. Öz: Bu çalışmanın amacı Almanya, Fransa ve Amerika hisse senedi piyasalarının Türkiye hisse senedi piyasası üzerindeki oynaklık yayılımı etkisini incelemektir. 02.01.2004 - 06.02.2017 dönemi için günlük frekansda DAX 30, CAC 40, S&P 500 ve BİST 100 endekslerine ilişkin kapanış verileri kullanılmıştır. Koşullu varyans değerlerini elde etmek amacıyla E-GARCH(1,1) modelinden yaralanılmıştır. Volatilitenin normal bir ekonomik konjonktürde nispeten daha dar bir bant içinde olması olağandır. Buna karşın küresel riskin yüksek olduğu kriz dönemlerinde ise daha büyük bir aralıkta seyretmesi beklenen bir durumdur. Dolayısıyla risk açısından farklılık gösteren ekonomik koşullarda, piyasalar arası oynaklık yayılımı davranışlarının da farklılaşması rasyonel bir beklentidir. Bu açıdan araştırmada söz konusu durumu dikkate alan Threshold VAR (TVAR) modellemesi kullanılmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda küresel riskin düşük olduğu rejimde BİST 100 endeksi üzerindeki yayılım etkisinin göreli olarak düşük olduğu, buna karşın küresel riskin yüksek olduğu rejimde ise söz konusu etkinin nispeten yüksek olduğu gözlemlenmiştir. Buna ek olarak BİST 100 endeksinin bu gelişmiş ülkelere ait 3 endeks içerisinden en yoğun olarak S&P endeksinden etkilendiği bulgulanmıştır.

Reinsurance is a versatile risk management strategy commonly employed by insurers to optimize their risk profile. In this paper, we study an optimal reinsurance design problem minimizing a general law-invariant coherent risk measure of the net risk exposure of a generic insurer, in conjunction with a general law-invariant comonotonic additive convex reinsurance premium principle and a premium budget constraint. Due to its intrinsic generality, this contract design problem encompasses a wide body of optimal reinsurance models commonly encountered in practice. A three-step solution scheme is presented. Firstly, the objective and constraint functions are exhibited in the so-called Kusuoka's integral representations. Secondly, the mini-max theorem for infinite dimensional spaces is applied to interchange the infimum on the space of indemnities and the supremum on the space of probability measures. Thirdly, the recently developed Neyman–Pearson methodology due to Lo (2017a) is adopted to solve the resulting infimum problem. Analytic and transparent expressions for the optimal reinsurance policy are provided, followed by illustrative examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical results yield mixed evidence of the effect of remittances on economic growth in countries of origin. This note assesses the potential impact of remittance instability on total factor productivity in Morocco. It uses a threshold vector autoregression model for the period 1975–2014. Remittances are used as a threshold variable. Results show that the response of total factor productivity to shock in remittances is positive and stronger when those remittances exceed the value of 5.132 per cent of GDP with the reverse effect when they are lower than the threshold value. Public authorities may enhance remittances to accelerate a country's development. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling insurance data using heavy-tailed distributions is of great interest for actuaries. Probability distributions present a description of risk exposure, where the level of exposure to the risk can be determined by “key risk indicators” that usually are functions of the model. Actuaries and risk managers often use such key risk indicators to determine the degree to which their companies are subject to particular aspects of risk, which arise from changes in underlying variables such as prices of equity, interest rates, or exchange rates. The present study proposes a new heavy-tailed exponential distribution that accommodates bathtub, upside-down bathtub, decreasing, decreasing-constant, and increasing hazard rates. Actuarial measures including value at risk, tail value at risk, tail variance, and tail variance premium are derived. A computational study for these actuarial measures is conducted, proving that the proposed distribution has a heavier tail as compared with the alpha power exponential, exponentiated exponential, and exponential distributions. We adopt six estimation approaches for estimating its parameters, and assess the performance of these estimators via Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, an actuarial real data set is analyzed, proving that the proposed model can be used effectively to model insurance data as compared with fifteen competing distributions.

Copyright of Hudební Výchova is the property of Charles University Prague, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates the optimal quota-share reinsurance strategies that can bring mutual benefit to both an insurer and a reinsurer. We consider five different optimality criteria that reflect the interest of both parties. The mutual beneficiary is also reflected in utility improvement constraints, which guarantee that both the insurer and the reinsurer will end up with higher expected utility of wealth with reinsurance agreements. Under each optimality criterion, explicit expressions of optimal quota-share retention and the corresponding objective function are obtained. Results indicate that the reinsurer’s safety loading plays a key role in determining the optimal retained proportion. In the numerical example, we demonstrate the expected utility increment after underwriting optimal constrained quota-share reinsurance that minimizes the total VaR/TVaR of the two parties. Comparing with the optimal strategies without utility constraint, the total expected utility will increase significantly after entering into an optimal quota-share reinsurance contact with utility improvement constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to examine the volatility spillover effects of German, French and American stock market indices on BIST 100 Turkish stock market index. Dataset consists of daily closing price observations starting from January 2, 2004, until February 6, 2017, for indices DAX 30, CAC 40, S&P 500 and BIST 100. E-GARCH(1,1) method has been used to model the conditional variance. Volatility is in a relatively narrow band under a non-crisis economic conjuncture. On the other hand, it is expected that the global risk will be higher during crisis periods. Therefore, the differentiation in the volatility spillover behavior among the markets while under different economic conditions is a rational expectation. In this regard, the Threshold VAR (TVAR) model was used in the study. In the result of the study, it has been observed that the volatility spillover effect on the BIST 100 index is relatively low in the regimes where the global risk is low, whereas the effect is relatively higher in the regime where the global risk is high. Furthermore, results of analysis also indicate that S&P is the most influential index to affect BIST 100 both in high and low-risk regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Obnovljeni zivot is the property of University of Zagreb, Society of Jesus and Faculty of Philosophy & Religious Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using monthly data for the period 2006⁻2011, this study analyzed the degree of spatial market integration in Malawi focusing on two dairy products (liquid milk and powdered milk) sold in the four major towns of the country. The analysis of spatial market integration is important to assess whether to re-establish a dairy processing facility in the northern part of the country. The empirical analysis comprised of the following steps: (1) Integration between prices from different regions were tested using Johansen’s cointegration procedure, with the results indicating that, in the long run, prices in some areas move in a similar direction. (2) Two spatial equilibrium models were estimated using a three-regime bivariate threshold vector autoregressive model (TVAR) and a three-regime threshold vector error correction model (TVECM). The results showed that transaction costs were not a cause for concern between the areas thus northern Malawi does not need to re-establish a dairy processing facility as surplus areas (mainly Southern Malawi) can supply the region.

The design of optimal reinsurance treaties in the presence of multifarious practical constraints is a substantive but underdeveloped topic in modern risk management. To examine the influence of these constraints on the contract design systematically, this article formulates a generic constrained reinsurance problem where the objective and constraint functions take the form of Lebesgue integrals whose integrands involve the unit-valued derivative of the ceded loss function to be chosen. Such a formulation provides a unifying framework to tackle a wide body of existing and novel distortion-risk-measure-based optimal reinsurance problems with constraints that reflect diverse practical considerations. Prominent examples include insurers’ budgetary, regulatory and reinsurers’ participation constraints. An elementary and intuitive solution scheme based on an extension of the cost–benefit technique in Cheung and Lo [Cheung, K.C. & Lo, A. (2015, in press). Characterizations of optimal reinsurance treaties: a cost–benefit approachScandinavian Actuarial Journal. doi:10.1080/03461238.2015.1054303.] is proposed and illuminated by analytically identifying the optimal risk-sharing schemes in several concrete optimal reinsurance models of practical interest. Particular emphasis is placed on the economic implications of the above constraints in terms of stimulating or curtailing the demand for reinsurance, and how these constraints serve to reconcile the possibly conflicting objectives of different parties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates optimal reinsurance treaties minimizing an insurer’s risk-adjusted liability, which encompasses a risk margin quantified by distortion risk measures. Via the introduction of a transparent cost-benefit argument, we extend the results in Cui et al. [Cui, W., Yang, J. & Wu, L. (2013). Optimal reinsurance minimizing the distortion risk measure under general reinsurance premium principles.Insurance: Mathematics and Economics53, 74–85] and provide full characterizations on the set of optimal reinsurance treaties within the class of non-decreasing, 1-Lipschitz functions. Unlike conventional studies, our results address the issue of (non-)uniqueness of optimal solutions and indicate that ceded loss functions beyond the traditional insurance layers can be optimal in some cases. The usefulness of our novel cost-benefit approach is further demonstrated by readily solving the dual problem of minimizing the reinsurance premium while maintaining the risk-adjusted liability below a fixed tolerance level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stochastic models used for pricing, reserving, or capital modelling in insurance companies are often very complex, which is why resulting distributions are typically approximated by Monte Carlo simulations. Both the market and regulators exert increasing pressure not to discard the resulting sample distributions, but rather to store them for future review, audit, or validation, as well as to transfer them between actuarial systems. The present work introduces a compression algorithm which approximates an empirical univariate distribution function through a piecewise linear distribution. In contrast to keeping the full sample, such an approximation facilitates the storage and data transfer of the results by drastically reducing memory requirements. The approximation algorithm preserves the mean and imposes a uniformly bounded relative error over a space of coherent risk measures (TVaR). An efficient, open source implementation is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reinsurance is often empirically hailed as a value-adding risk management strategy which an insurer can utilize to achieve various business objectives. In the context of a distortion-risk-measure-based three-party model incorporating a policyholder, insurer and reinsurer, this article formulates explicitly the optimal insurance–reinsurance strategies from the perspective of the insurer. Our analytic solutions are complemented by intuitive but scientifically rigorous explanations on the marginal cost and benefit considerations underlying the optimal insurance–reinsurance decisions. These cost-benefit discussions not only cast light on the economic motivations for an insurer to engage in insurance with the policyholder and in reinsurance with the reinsurer, but also mathematically formalize the value created by reinsurance with respect to stabilizing the loss portfolio and enlarging the underwriting capacity of an insurer. Our model also allows for the reinsurer’s failure to deliver on its promised indemnity when the regulatory capital of the reinsurer is depleted by the reinsured loss. The reduction in the benefits of reinsurance to the insurer as a result of the reinsurer’s default is quantified, and its influence on the optimal insurance–reinsurance policies analyzed.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of unanticipated fiscal policy shocks on the growth rate and the cyclical component of real private output and reveal different types of asymmetries in fiscal policy implementation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use two alternative vector autoregressive systems in order to construct the fiscal policy shocks: one with the simple sum monetary aggregate MZM and one with the alternative CFS Divisia MZM aggregate. From each one of these systems we extracted four types of shocks: a negative and a positive government spending shock and a negative and a positive government revenue shock. These eight different types of unanticipated fiscal shocks were used next to empirically examine their effects on the growth rate and cyclical component of real private GNP in two sets of regressions: one that assumes only contemporaneous effects of the shocks on output and one that is augmented with four lags of each fiscal shock. Findings – The authors come up with three key findings: first, all fiscal multipliers are below unity but with signs as predicted by Keynesian theory. Second, government expenditures have a larger impact as compared to the tax policy and finally, positive government spending shocks are more significant than negative spending shocks. All these results are in line with previous studies and are robust through many tests using structural identification proposed by Blanchard and Perotti (2002). Practical implications – The empirical findings in this manuscript can be used for conducting a more efficient fiscal policy. The importance of government spending shocks is empirically verified along with the asymmetries related to price stickiness predicted by Keynesian theory. According to the results an efficient fiscal policy would: in terms of an expansionary policy, use government spending as a means to stimulate the economy instead of tax cuts and in the case of a contractionary policy use government revenue (higher taxes) so that the costs of this policy in terms of output lost are lower. Originality/value – In this study the authors introduce three main innovations: first, to the best of our knowledge the Divisia monetary aggregates have not yet been used to previous research pertaining to fiscal policy. Second, following Cover’s (1992) procedure of identifying monetary policy shocks we extract the unanticipated fiscal policy shocks on government spending and revenue. Finally, the authors explicitly test for the asymmetric effects on the growth rate and the cyclical component of real private GNP of a contractionary and expansionary fiscal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses optimal reinsurance strategy by minimizing insurer's risk under one general risk measure: Distortion risk measure. The authors assume that the reinsurance premium is determined by the expected value premium principle and the retained loss of the insurer is an increasing function of the initial loss. An explicit solution of the insurer's optimal reinsurance problem is obtained. The optimal strategies for some special distortion risk measures, such as value-at-risk (VaR) and tail value-at-risk (TVaR), are also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]