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: This crisis first started with subprime loans and quickly morphed into a credit crisis that eventually engulfed a lot of financial institutions around the world. If a AAA were really a AAA, this crisis would probably have been contained and localized. As the crisis developed, evidence emerged from the shadows that revealed the questionable quality of some AAA-rated MBS or ABS. Subprime loans were the weakest link. As the credit boom came to an end and the economy slowed down further, the Alt-A, prime and credit card loans were also affected. The subprime crisis is only the symptom of a much larger underlying problem. Both consumers and corporations were overleveraged.

Description: The liquidity crisis and the insufficient depth of the market led to a strong correlation crisis: many risks that could be considered as close to mutually independent in the classical regime suddenly became strongly positively dependent. More correlation crisis may happen in the future. We need to be more careful with black-box tools and to train what I would define as “quanlitative analysts” “Quanls” in the Enterprise Risk Management ERM process, that is risk managers who are able to lead interdisciplinary ERM studies from a jointly qualitative and quantitative point of view, with an emphasis on dynamics.

Description: In this mortgage crisis, it appears mortgage brokers and mortgage originating bankers were similar to unchecked MGAs. These brokers and banks had an incentive to produce mortgages that would generate fees for them. Those mortgagees would then be sold to investors, generating additional fees – but it appears there were often no incentives to align the interests of those mortgage producers with the purchasers of these mortgages. The brokers and banks “did not have any skin in the game.”

Description: Models are imperfect approximations of reality. Once a bubble has been recognized, that’s the time for mechanisms of caution and prudence to kick in, even in the face of exuberance – especially in the face of exuberance. Liquidity and trust is plentiful until it’s not – it can evaporate with blazing speed and only returns slowly. Risk is contagious, which means every single employee and citizen has a vested interest in taking on the role of chief risk officer.

Description: Modern economies are based on the premise that all the main players look after themselves. The bankruptcy and limited liability laws gave property speculators and banks a put option on society so they could walk away from losses above their capital base, yet enjoy all the gains of such speculation. They acted in what they believed were their own interests. It seems that society – well aware of what was happening – did not effectively look after its own interest and now must pay the price.

Description: The Society of Actuaries Research Institute’s Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program is pleased to release a collection of essays addressing the impact of inflation on retirement and retirement-related issues.

Description: E-book on Response to Life Insurance 2020 Foresight – A Call for Essays e-Book. This e-book focuses on the vision for the future of the life insurance sector and contains the introduction and essays.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ (SOA) Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program in collaboration with the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA) and the Organization of Latino Actuaries (OLA) are pleased to publish this essay collection on Aging and Retirement Issues in People of Different Races and Ethnicities. This effort explores how differences in wealth and retirement outcomes are experienced by people of different races and ethnicities and promotes a better understanding of the underlying issues surrounding the differences.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ (SOA) Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program in collaboration with the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA) and the Organization of Latino Actuaries (OLA) are pleased to publish this essay collection on Aging and Retirement Issues in People of Different Races and Ethnicities. This effort explores how differences in wealth and retirement outcomes are experienced by people of different races and ethnicities and promotes a better understanding of the underlying issues surrounding the differences.