Description: This paper discusses both the theoretical and the application aspects of stress testing in managing enterprise risks. Effective stress testing maximizes the risk adjusted enterprise profit by controlling major risks financial, strategic, operational and hazard upon identifying risk metrics and modeling the correlations. A case study is included for demonstration purposes.

Description: Delinquency rates are closely related to the economic conditions and can be analyzed using measures of economic growth and stability. In an attempt to predict the delinquency rate for the health care equipment financial industry, we investigated the relationship between delinquency rate and key macroeconomic variables for the period from 1998 to 2008. The study reveals that the tightening credit standards and unemployment rate are the key macroeconomic indicators influencing the delinquency rate. The analysis further helps in arriving at a trigger to monitor the delinquency rate based on the macroeconomic indicators, thus enabling proactive portfolio management. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: The conventional way to analyze grouped observations on a single variable is to construct histograms or, sometimes, fit a normal distribution. We extend this latter approach by allowing for transformations to near normality.

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: This paper examines the funding expectations of the three primary stakeholders in the pension system: plan sponsors, taxpayers, and workers. From The Future of Pension Plan Funding and Disclosure Monograph, M-RS05-1.

Description: This paper considers the pension plan as part of the capital structure of the sponsoring employer, enabling lessons from financial theory concerning capital structure to be used to answer the questions about what assets a pension fund should hold. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice in Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.

Description: This is a concluding and encompassing part of our research on the project entitled \Weighted Premium Calculation Principles and Risk Capital Allocations, which has been supported by the Actuarial Education and Research Fund AERF and the Society of Actuaries Committee on Knowledge Extension Research CKER. We explore the concept of weighted distributions and their role in various phenomena occurring in insurance and finance. In particular, we relate weighted distributions to actuarial and economic premium calculation principles, and also to the capital asset pricing model CAPM. Imitating the latter, we propose a weighted insurance pricing model WIPM. Although general in formulation, we show that the WIPM can successfully be evaluated in a variety of situations, which we illustrate with a number of examples.

Description: This paper examines the discrepancy that seems to exist between classical financial theory and the widely adopted portfolio selection theory, and proposes that the roles of agents and the interests of corporate insiders need also to be considered. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice in Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.

Description: This article investigates the simplicity of the Balducci hypothesis, and compares the fractional-age death probability given by three widely used assumptions: uniform distribution of deaths, the Balducci hypothesis, and constant force of mortality [1, 2].

Description: This paper takes the position that a retirement plan should not be evaluated differently than other financial arrangements, and, therefore, its value should be measured through a utility function. The paper then suggests a method of incorporating utility theory into the retirement plan design model. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice in Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.