Risk in a large claims insurance market with bipartite graph structure

We model the influence of sharing large exogeneous losses to the reinsurance market by a bipartite graph. Using Pareto-tailed claims and multivariate regular variation we obtain asymptotic results for the Value-at-Risk and the Conditional Tail Expectation. We show that the dependence on the network structure plays a fundamental role in their asymptotic behaviour. As is well-known in a non-network setting, if the Pareto exponent is larger than 1, then for the individual agent (reinsurance company) diversification is beneficial, whereas when it is less than 1, concentration on a few objects is the better strategy. An additional aspect of this paper is the amount of uninsured losses which have to be convered by society. In the situation of networks of agents, in our setting diversification is never detrimental concerning the amount of uninsured losses. If the Pareto-tailed claims have finite mean, diversification turns out to be never detrimental, both for society and for individual agents. In contrast, if the Pareto-tailed claims have infinite mean, a conflicting situation may arise between the incentives of individual agents and the interest of some regulator to keep risk for society small. We explain the influence of the network structure on diversification effects in different network scenarios

The History of the Quantitative Methods in Finance Conference Series. 1992-2007

This report charts the history of the Quantitative Methods in Finance (QMF) conference from its beginning in 1993 to the 15th conference in 2007. It lists alphabetically the 1037 speakers who presented at all 15 conferences and the titles of their papers.

Risk measurement with the equivalent utility principles.

Risk measures have been studied for several decades in the actuarial literature, where they appeared under the guise of premium calculation principles. Risk measures and properties that risk measures should satisfy have recently received considerable at- tention in the financial mathematics literature. Mathematically, a risk measure is a mapping from a class of random variables defined on some measurable space to the (extended) real line. Economically, a risk measure should capture the preferences of the decision-maker. In incomplete financial markets, prices are no more unique but depend on the agents' attitudes towards risk. This paper complements the study initiated in Denuit, Dhaene & Van Wouwe (1999) and considers several theories for decision under uncertainty: the classical expected utility paradigm, Yaari's dual approach, maximin expected utility theory, Choquet expected utility theory and Quiggin rank-dependent utility theory. Building on the actuarial equivalent utility pricing principle, broad classes of risk measures are generated, of which most classical risk measures appear to be particular cases. This approach shows that most risk measures studied recently in the financial literature disregard the utility concept (i.e. correspond to linear utilities), causing some deficiencies. Some alternatives proposed in the literature are discussed, based on exponential utilities.Actuarial; Coherence; Decision; Expected; Market; Markets; Measurement; Preference; Premium; Prices; Pricing; Principles; Random variables; Research; Risk; Risk measure; Risk measurement; Space; Studies; Theory; Uncertainty; Utilities; Variables;

On the performance of the minimum VaR portfolio

Alexander and Baptista (2002) develop the concept of mean-VaR efficiency for portfolios and demonstrate its very close connection with mean-variance efficiency. In particular, they identify the minimum VaR portfolio as a special type of mean-variance efficient portfolio. Our empirical analysis finds that, for commonly used VaR breach probabilities, minimum VaR portfolios yield ex post returns that conform well with the specified VaR breach probabilities and with return/risk expectations. These results provide a considerable extension of evidence supporting the empirical validity and tractability of the mean-VaR efficiency concept