Description: A European call option pricing model similar to the Black-Scholes equation [1] is derived. Like the Black-Scholes equation, the model is based upon an assumption of a lognormal distribution of the price of a risky, non-dividend-paying security at a given point in the future. However, unlike Black-Scholes, the market's risk preference is recognized through a parameter that permits refinement of the model to agree either with experience or with future advances in the underlying theory.

Description: This is the abstract of the paper Minimum Quadratic Distance Estimators for the Zeta Parametric Family. In this paper, we propose a new estimator, based on quadratic distance, asymptotically fully efficient for parameter values greater than 2 and highly efficient for smaller values, but computationally more appealing than the maximum likelihood estimator we compare its asymptotic variance with that of the moment estimator and an estimator proposed by Seal, based on the ratio of the observed frequencies of the first two classes. We also discuss a goodness-of-fit test and a test to discriminate between the zeta distribution and the Poisson distribution truncated at 0.

Description: This is the abstract of the article 'A Proposed Unified Valuation System'. This article will briefly describe some analytical examples of a stochastic modeling of risk use to illustrate the S-curve approach to valuation, but more importantly describe key additional area of research and theory, which need to be developed. The focus of this presentation is an invitation for additional research to support a new approach to statutory valuation of life and health risk that can result in better management and regulatory information.

Description: Several previous papers treat the rate of interest as a stochastic process in the determination of values of insurances and annuity functions. None of these papers consider the current interest rate as a starting point in the model. In this paper, autoregressive interest models, which are conditional upon current and past interest rates, are developed. It is shown how these models may be applied to the evaluation of moments of interest, insurance and annuity functions. Numerical results are also given.

Description: This paper addresses the stochastic modeling for managing asset liability process. We start with developing a jump-diffusion process for evaluating of the liabilities of the insurance company in general. We then formulate the ALM process into a stochastic control problem. With this approach, we present a Bel|man-Dreyfus Fundamental type formula for ALM process in terms of the solution of a system of algebraic equations and partial differential equations.

Description: Applications of Lagrangian distributions to modelling claim frequency data in an insurance portfolio is a relatively new concept. The major difficulty is that the generating functions of these distributions cannot be expressed in terms of elementary functions. Also deriving moments and/or cumulants is somewhat tedious. This article illustrates how to use Maple effectively to overcome these difficulties.

Description: This paper presents a multi-state stochastic model for analyzing continuing care retirement community CCRC populations. The model considers CCRCs with a number of independent living units and a skilled nursing facility. Residents may transfer temporarily or permanently to this facility. It is assumed that units vacated by deaths, withdrawals or permanent transfers are immediately occupied by new residents. Transfers are modeled using a time-homogeneous Markov process. The paper provides some probabilistic results and some numerical results obtained using this model. Some important generalizations of the model are also briefly discussed.

Description: Stochastic approximation is a powerful tool for sequential estimation of zero points of a function. In this paper, this methodology is defined and is shown to be related to a broad class of credibility formulae derived for the Exponential Dispersion Family. The authors further consider a Location Dispersion Family which is rich enough and for which no simple credibility formula exists. For this case, a Generalized Sequential Credibility Formula is suggested and an optimal stepwise gain sequence is derived.

Description: This paper presents a new methodology for obtaining fast algorithms and closed form solutions for pricing callable bonds in continuous time models. Results are directly applicable to regulatory scenario testing, immunization and market value accounting.

Description: In a series papers by Willmot and Lin, both exponential and non-exponential bounds for the tail probability of various compound distributions have been derived. In Wilmot, it was suggested that non-exponential bounds for the ruin probability were difficult to obtain using martingale arguments. In this note, we show how to use martingale inequalities to obtain some upper bounds for the ruin probability.