In this article, we use dynamic leisure preference to study the optimal retirement decision with consideration of part-time work after the “official” retirement. We also consider a risky investment besides risk-free investment. and allow investor borrowing money at risk-free interest rate....

There are large, upfront, fixed costs to writing a life insurance policy. Both agent commission and direct underwriting costs (e.g., fees for physicals and blood tests) are fully paid a few years into contracts that can last 10-30 years. Because of these upfront costs, insurers can actually lose...

In this paper, we discuss how to determine the optimal investment portfolio and reinsurance strategy of insurance company based on zero-sum stochastic differential game between the market and the insurer. We extend Zhang and Siu (2009)’s model by (1) including a risk-free asset, (2)...

In this article, we discuss whether and when the risk taking and moral hazard is beneficial to the insured and to the society as well. We establish model by stochastic optimal control theory. We obtain the optimal levels of risk taking and moral hazard from perspectives of the insured and the...

A wave of multi-state audits on the insurance industry’s use of the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File (DMF) stirred national controversy over the status of unclaimed life insurance proceeds. Multi-state investigations uncovered “asymmetric” use of the DMF among many...

The Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB) recently issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-01 which requires firms to report unrealized gains and losses on available-for-sale (AFS) equity securities in net income, thus reducing firms’ ability to manage or smooth earnings. Previously,...

Managerial, or discretionary, earnings opacity is the intentional lack of transparency to hide the intrinsic value of a firm. Opacity arises through two channels. The first is ex ante, when managers manipulate current expectations about future performance; and the second is ex post, when managers...

We extend the results of Lando and Skødeberg (2002) with the first examination of non-Markov effects for property-liability insurer rating transitions. Results provide evidence for the existence of three rating phenomena, including an initial rating effect (future rating transitions depend on...