Prospective Lifetables: Life Insurance Pricing and Hedging in a Stochastic Mortality Environment

In life insurance, actuaries have traditionally calculated premiums and reserves using a deterministic mortality intensity, which is a function of the age of the insured only. Over the course of the 20th century, the population of the industrialized world underwent a major mortality transition, with a dramatic decline in mortality rates. The mortality decline has been dominated by two major trends: a reduction in mortality due to infectious diseases affecting mainly young ages, and a decrease in mortality at old ages. These mortality improvements have to be taken into account to price long-term life insurance products and to analyse the sustainability of social security systems. In this paper, we argue that pricing and reserving for pension and life insurance products requires dynamic (or prospective) lifetables. We briefly review classic and recent projection methods and adopt a Poisson log-bilinear approach to estimate Portuguese Prospective Lifetables. The advantages of using dynamic lifetables are twofold. Firstly, it provides more realistic premiums and reserves, and secondly, it quantifies the risk of the insurance companies associated with the underlying longevity risks. Finally, we discuss possible ways of transferring the systematic mortality risk to other parties.

Being aware of our own implicit prejudice: a study on implicit attitudes and self-awareness

A teoria da Objective Self-awareness (Duval & Wicklund,1972) defende que os seres humanos têm capacidade para orientar atenção para si próprios, o que pode provocar uma alteração na conduta individual, principalmente quando esta capacidade de self-awareness revela que o comportamento do individuo não refletem os seus próprios standards. De acordo com a literatura, atitudes, divididas em atitudes explícitas e implícitas, predizem o comportamento do individuo. Desta forma, procurámos entender como as atitudes implícitas de um individuo vão afetar a sua conduta quando este se encontrar num estado de self-awareness. Assim, neste estudo criámos um teste (N=125) em que medimos as atitudes explícitas e implícitas dos participantes e aplicámos um exercício de distribuição de recursos. Os participantes realizaram este teste com ou sem a presença de um espelho. Os nossos resultados não comprovaram as nossas hipóteses, no entanto, descobrimos um efeito direto do espelho sobre os resultados da tarefa de distribuição de recursos.Objective self-awareness theory (Duval & Wicklund, 1972) posited that humans have the capacity to orient attention towards themselves, which may provoke an alteration of individual behavior, particularly when this self-awareness ability reveals that the individual’s behavior does not match his own standards. According to the literature, attitudes, subdivided into explicit and implicit attitudes, predict behavior. Previous studies have concerned themselves with how explicit attitudes would influence behavior when people were under the effect of self-awareness. As such, we attempted to understand how the individual’s implicit attitudes will affect his conduct when he finds himself in a state of self-awareness. Therefore, in this study we created a test (N=125) on which we measured either explicit attitudes or implicit attitudes of the participants and applied a resource allocation task. The participants conducted the test with or without the presence of a mirror. Our results did not confirm our hypothesis, however, we did discover a direct effect of the mirror on the results of the resource allocation task

Algumas Notas mais sobre Ivanhoe no Romantismo Português: (em torno de Alfredo Possolo Hogan - e com uma hipótese sobre o Frei Luís de Sousa de Garrett)

Em estudos anteriores, procurámos demonstrar a especial relevância do romance de Walter Scott Ivanhoe (traduzido em 1837, 1838 e 1851) para a ficção histórica do Romantismo português, pondo em evidência o apreço que por essa narrativa tinham os nossos escritores de meados do século XIX e a circulação na sua escrita de motivos temáticos e diegéticos radicáveis naquela obra de Scott; e ocupámo-nos, por outro lado, de examinar o modo como a intriga de Ivanhoe foi levada à cena numa adaptação assinada por Alfredo Possolo Hogan em 1849, com significativas modulações de personagens, situações e temas. Retomando e aprofundando essas investigações, o presente artigo ensaiará cruzá-las, prestando atenção ao quadrilátero formado, no contexto do nosso Romantismo, por romance histórico original, romance histórico traduzido, drama histórico original e drama histórico traduzido.In previous studies I have sought to evince the specific relevance of Walter Scotts Ivanhoe (translated in 1837, 1838 and 1851) for the Portuguese historical novel of the Romantic Period, by highlighting the esteem in which that particular novel was held in the mid-1800s and the circulation in writings by Portuguese authors of thematic and narrative motifs that may have been derived therefrom; and I have additionally examined the ways in which Ivanhoe was adapted for the stage by Alfredo Possolo Hogan in 1849, with significant modulations of characters, situations and themes. This article attempts to combine such earlier approaches by exploring the quadrilateral formed by original historical novel, translated historical novel, original historical drama and translated historical drama in the context of Portuguese Romanticism

Muralismos na América Latina: o barroco na conquista

I Congresso Internacional América Latina e Interculturalidade: América Latina e Caribe: cenários linguístico-culturais contemporâneos, 07, 08 e 09 de novembro de 2013 - UNILACultivado como recurso educativo e de aprimoramento estético do olhar, o Muralismo Mexicano instituiu­se como fenômeno redimensionador da ação pictórica no continente latino americano. Idealizado após a Revolução Mexicana, promoveu a condensação imagética da história com fatos e feitos culturais da ancestralidade mexicana, emergindo como procedimento criativo expressionista sui generis, na paleta de Tamayo, Orozco, Rivera e Siqueiros. Cristalizou­se como personalidade artística continental ao expandir­se para o Paraguai, Argentina, Brasil, Bolívia e Chile onde, por processos de transculturação, refundou as estéticas nacionais

Challenging the Uppsala Internationalization Model: a Contingent Approach to the Internationalization of Services

Some authors have questioned whether the well-known Uppsala internationalization model would be generalizable to services. We take one of the model’s assumptions – that firms will follow a gradually increasing resource commitment path in each country – and challenge whether it would hold up under specific service characteristics or particular combinations of environmental variables and service characteristics. We review the literature in search of more appropriate dimensions for the classification of services that would allow for the test of the Uppsala model’s assumption. Based on purely conceptual reasoning, supported by previous empirical studies, we propose some hypotheses about how service firms would be expected to behave – in terms of their choice of foreign entry mode - under certain circumstances and what the performance implications would be expected to be. These hypotheses are contrary to the Uppsala model’s predictions. This paper is solelyconceptual, so the key constructs (environment and service-specific variables) would still require operationalization before the hypotheses can be empirically tested

Economic Causes of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: A Panel Data Analysis for 2000s

We use newly launched and some never before analyzed datasets, to assess the recent economic and policy determinants of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. We estimate panel data models for the years between 2002 and 2007 for 368 municipalities in the region using municipality fixed effects and GMM. The results show that recent deforestation is driven by fluctuations in meat and soybean prices, it increases with rural credit availability, and with the size of rural reform settlements, while it decreases with protected areas. Moreover we find that higher presence of the Brazilian environmental police (IBAMA) was effective in reducing deforestation rates. --Deforestation,Amazon,Economic causes,Brazil

The impact of rating on consumers saving decisions

This study aims to empirically analyze the impact of the rating given by the rating agency Moody’s in the choice of the consumer in Portugal, utilizing the data of nine banks during the period of 2007 to 2014. The chosen banks were: Banco Popular, Banco Português de Investimento, Banco Espírito Santo, Banif , Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Millennium BCP, Montepio, Montepio, Novo Banco and Santander Totta . In this analyze I used the interest rate and other observable characteristic like the rating ,the age of banks , the number of branches , the stock market return and the yields of government bonds to explain the consumer decisions. The model used in this thesis is the nested multinomial logit and for the possibility of this estimation was required to calculate the market share of the market, find instruments for the model like the operational costs per deposits and the loans interest rate, and divide the banks in segments. The results suggest that the consumer is not sensitive to the rating and the interest rate.Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar empiricamente o impacto do rating dado pela agência de rating Moody´s na escolha do consumidor em Portugal, utilizando dados de nove bancos durante o período de 2007-2014. Os bancos escolhidos foram: Banco Popular, o Banco Português de Investimento, o Banco Espírito Santo, Banif ,Caixa Geral de Depósitos, o Millennium BCP, o Montepio, o Montepio, Novo Banco e Santander Totta. Para esta análise eu usei a taxa de juro e outras características observáveis como a classificação, a idade dos bancos, o número de balcões, o retorno do mercado de ações e os rendimentos de títulos do governo para explicar as decisões do consumidor. O modelo utilizado nesta tese é o nested multinomial logit e para a possibilidade da realização deste modelo foi necessário calcular a quota de mercado, encontrar instrumentos para o modelo tais como os custos operacionais por depósitos e a taxa de juros de empréstimos e dividir os bancos em segmentos. Os resultados sugerem que o consumidor não é sensível ao rating e à taxa de juro

Elisabel Larriba and Agustín Coletes Blanco, eds. La poésie, vecteur de l’information au temps de la Guerre d’Espagne (1808‒1814)

Recensão de: Elisabel Larriba and Agustín Coletes Blanco, eds. La poésie, vecteur de l'information au temps de la Guerre d'Espagne (1808‒1814). Presses Universitaires de Provence, 2017. Pp. 168. €15.00. ISBN: 979103200130