Description: Arguably, many of the fundamental contributing factors to the 2008 mortgage crisis involved misdirected incentives and misinformation available to key participants in the housing finance process. The incentives discussed here include those of the mortgage holders, mortgage intermediaries, mortgage providers, securitizers, raters and CEOs and other highly paid staff of those involved. Unless similar incentives are recognized, future public policy decisions will again fail to avoid this system-wide risk. Since I am most familiar with the U.S. situation, my comments will be limited accordingly.

Description: The American Academy of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries (SOA) have joined resources to manage the economic scenario generators used in regulatory reserve and capital calculations.

Description: The article contemplates whether there is heightened sensitivity towards how investment activity is portrayed and described.

Description: Chapter 6 presents a listing of sources used in the Price, Waterhouse study. From Study of Public Financial Guarantee Programs, M-FI96-2.

Description: Investment opportunities are driven by events in the economy and how participants in the financial markets react to those events. This keynote address will highlight current economic themes and their impact on investment opportunities.

Description: The presenters will discuss the current interest rate market environment and what insurance companies can do to best protect themselves from interest rate risk. The presenters, industry leaders in financial risk management, will explore how different products and strategies—including swaps, options, and other derivatives—are being used in today’s market. The discussion will include how to model and measure interest rate risk, how to quantify hedge effectiveness, and how to improve hedging operations.

Description: 1994 SOA meeting, Orlando. This session is entitled survivorship in finance. This was a free flowing discussion about finance and economics.

Description: Government credit programs are intended to meet various social and economic objectives. By providing more favorable terms than are available from private lenders, credit programs assist borrowers, including some who could not obtain funds otherwise. From Study of Public Financial Guarantee Programs, M-FI96-2.

Description: The author briefly describes a hypothetical example of several unconscious biases in the workplace, drawing upon the behavioral economics work of Kahneman and Tversky. He presents data to refute the snap judgments that are all too common in human interaction.

Description: This report summarizes a study that estimates the total economic burden of the opioid crisis in the United States from 2015 through 2018 and projects future costs of the opioid epidemic for 2019.