Description: A collection of the articles submitted for the Investment Section's This Time It's Different Essay Contest.

Description: The monograph walks the reader through the hindsight, insight and foresight building process while discussing theoretical and practical issues supporting the building of valid forecasts with provenance for each of these schema examples. That is, the analyst can document the iterative ‘profiling change processes’ mindscape and landscape elements by which and through which the successful forecast is built. This kind of forecast construction ameliorates the ‘black box’ problem of generating pattern output without an understanding of the pattern’s creation or contextual meaning that is often seen when using other methods, particularly machine learning and artificial intelligence. This issue is discussed, referencing appropriate thought leaders.

Description: Research report describing the results of an Emerging Risks Survey conducted in November 2008. Emerging risks can be thought of from two perspectives: completely new risks that have never been seen before, and risks that are evolving in unexpected ways.

Description: Many call this the sub-prime crisis, but risky mortgages were simply symptomatic of the underlying excesses building through the financial system. Investors, government, lenders and borrowers were all at fault. Where did the skeptics go?

Description: Since 2008 the Joint Risk Management Section, sponsored in partnership by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA), Society of Actuaries (SOA) and Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), has annually conducted a Survey of Emerging Risks. As the researcher for this project, I have asked open-ended questions thought to be useful to risk managers. Andy Grove noted the importance of viewing problems from an outsider’s perspective. After a strategy he implemented had struggled, he hypothesized how the strategy would change if he was fired. This paper summarizes activities that are perceived as adding value by risk managers. Each company is unique based on the skill set of the risk team and needs of the firm, many of which are strategic and can be fulfilled through well thought out scenario testing. These can be split into eight themes.

Description: Max Rudolph's winning essay.

Description: Research report describing the results of an Emerging Risks Survey conducted in 2010. This survey attempts to track the thoughts of risk managers about emerging risks across time. The new top five are: 1. Fall in value of US Dollar. 2. International terrorism. 3. Chinese economic hard landing. 4. Oil price shock. 5. Failed and failing states.