Description: The investment risk generated by a stochastic interest rate is recognized as often the greatest risk associated with a whole life or retirement policy. Recent research has investigated the mathematics of this risk when the interest rate follows a stochastic process and the time to death is considered to be random. In this paper we focus on the use of the zero coupon bond as an investment instrument to fund a whole life policy. It is unlikely that a company will entirely fund a particular single policy with a zero coupon bond.

Description: Given a financial transaction we are often interested in the number of internal rates of return [yield rates] and their location. From an actuarial point of view, the fundamental question is to identify those transactions with a single yield rate, or a single rate in some interval such as the positive reals. In this paper we are concerned with this counting problem. We survey various results concerning this problem, and provide a unifying approach together with some new insights.

Description: Risk management and capital budgeting are two critical components of the corporate decision process. They often need to be considered jointly at the corporate level because of their natural interaction through the dependent risk exposures and other synergetic relationships within an intricate corporate structure in a dynamic business environment. . This paper develops an integrated framework that aligns these two important corporate strategies across business divisions to optimize the streamlined enterprise strategic goal in a multi-period setting. The proposed integrated framework can serve as a practical guideline for corporate executives to optimally coordinate capital budgeting and risk management at the enterprise level.

Description: In this paper, we introduce a political risk variable, d, to measure risk of foreign direct investment FDI. The political risk variable has opposite effects of loss reduction and loss prevention in Ehrlich and Becker 1972. The unique characteristics of political risk insurance make the applications of actuarially-based pricing models infeasible. In this study, by taking into account the effects of self-protection and self-insurance through the variable d and by maximizing utility function, we find the equilibrium for insured and insurer in a competitive market and in a monopoly one. In addition, under the equilibrium status, the boundary for the amount of investment, the insurance coverage, and the minimum required rate of return on the FDI are derived.

Description: This paper demonstrates that using a conditional probability approach to analyzing investment data yields investment forecast and stock option pricing models which more closely match actual market data, and it demonstrates the impact that conditional probabilities could have on CAPM beta and risk premia calculations. Reprinted from: Journal of Financial and Economic Practice, Vol. 6 No. 2 Spring 2006.