Signs of dependence and heavy tails in non-life insurance data

In this paper we study data from the yearly reports the four major Swedish non-life insurers have sent to the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA). We aim at finding marginal distributions of, and dependence between, losses on the five largest lines of business (LoBs) in order to create models for Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) calculation. We try to use data in an optimal way by sensibly defining an accounting year loss in terms of actuarial liability predictions, and by pooling observations from several companies when possible to decrease the uncertainty about the underlying distributions and their parameters. We find that dependence between LoBs is weaker in our data than what is assumed in the Solvency II standard formula. We also find dependence between companies that may affect financial stability, and must be taken into account when estimating loss distribution parameters. Moreover, we discuss under what circumstances an insurer is better (or worse) off using an internal model for SCR calculation instead of the standard formula.Comment: 16 page

Listening for the Heartbeat of Being: The Arts of Robert Bringhurst edited by Brent Wood and Mark Dickinson

Review of Brent Wood and Mark Dickinson\u27s Listening for the Heartbeat of Being: The Arts of Robert Bringhurst

Testing Behavioral Public Economics Theories in the Laboratory

"Behavioral economics", or the application of methods and evidence from other social sciences to economics, has increased greatly in significance in the last two decades. An important method by which many of its predictions have been tested has been via laboratory experiments. In this paper I survey and assess experimental tests of various applications of behavioral economics to the specific area of public economics, or "behavioral public economics". I discuss the basic elements of behavioral economics, the methodology of experimental economics, applications of experimental methods to behavioral public economics, and topics in which future applications should prove useful.experimental methods, behavioral economics