Description: Interest rates steadily declining ever since the Volcker Fed tackled inflation in the early eighties. Ten years of stimulating monetary policy brought new lows. We should have braced ourselves for a return to neutrality, but that concept remains elusive. We will explore structural issues that have brought rates to these low levels and the potential impacts on the insurance business.

Description: This articles explores the notion of whether the old rules and paradigms of investment strategy and caution may no longer be applicable in today’s financial environment, because things were “different this time.”

Description: “What is the likelihood of market crashes? This article seeks to provide an answer to this and related questions by focusing mainly on the crash of October 1987. Specifically, we shall seek answers to three questions: 1. Given the history of market returns, was the crash of ‘87 unusual? 2. How do conditional variance models such as GARCH behave around periods of extreme moves in the market? 3. What is the impact of the crash on backtesting and performance evaluation?” Editor’s Note: The following article originally appeared in the Winter 1998 issue of The BARRA Newsletter, Horizon, and is reprinted here with permission.

Description: Article from The Actuary, April 1985, Volume 20, No. 4 that discusses from usury to interest. Usury definitions are 1 The lending out of money with an interest charge for its use: the taking or practice of taking interest 2 An unconscionable or exorbitant rate or amount of interest, specifically interest in excess of a legal rate charged to a borrower for the use of money. Between definitions 1 and 2 are 2000 years of Western history, beginning with Biblical strictures against charging any interest and reaching today's sophisticated credit economy, in which interest, per se, is accepted and only excessive interest is illegal.

Description: A discussion of the causes of Jamaica’s Life Insurance and Financial Sector Crisis in the late 1990s and its impacts on the life insurance industry

Description: This is a panel discussion about the economic outlook in the 1960's particularly for equities. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1962, Vol. 14 Pt. 2

Description: If has been noted that the turnover of many investment funds has been quite high in recent years relative to history and very high in absolute terms. There have been fundamental changes in the marketplace that have caused the high turnover. Investment horizons have been shortened. This article discusses the changes.

Description: This article discusses a run on the bank that occurred in the Korean securities market.

Description: This is a panel discussion about the economic outlook in the 1960's from the Canadian viewpoint. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1962, Vol. 14 Pt. 2

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA New York City Meeting covers the overall trends in the financial market place, the relationship between banks and insurance companies, joint ventures between them and the issues faced by these two distribution systems. From the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 2.