International Portfolio Investments and The Informational Value of Trade

A large volume of literature suggests that information asymmetry resulting from the spatial separation between investors and investments have a significant impact on the composition of investors’ domestic and international portfolios. I show that institutional factors affecting trading in tangible goods help explain a substantial portion of investors’ spatial bias. More importantly, I demonstrate that an information flow medium with breadth and richness directly linked to the bilateral commitment of resources between countries, that I measure by their trading intensity in tangible goods, is consistent with the prevailing country allocation in investors’ international portfolios.

The Impact of FDI on International Portfolio Investments

Some empirical research has argued that part of the reason for the observed "home bias" is that investors are able to indirectly achieve internationally diversified portfolios via domestically listed multinational firms. Another branch of this research attributes the "home bias" and country allocations to more deeply rooted informational causes. Using a four-year annual panel of Finnish international portfolios and Foreign Direct Investments in twenty-five countries, I provide evidence consistent with an information asymmetry explanation

Credit Default Swaps and Insurance: Against the Potts Opinion

Little attention has been given to the possibility that CDS transactions might be construed as insurance contracts in English law. This article challenges the widespread “Potts opinion”, which states that CDSs are not insurance, because they do not require the protection buyer to sustain a loss or to have an insurable interest in the subject matter. CDSs often do provide protection against loss that the buyer is exposed to; loss indemnity is not a necessary characterisation of an insurance contract; insurable interest does not form part of the definition of insurance, but is an additional requirement of valid insurance; and what matters is the substance not the form of the contract. The situation in the US and Australia is also briefly considered.

Huntingdonshire Regional College: e-Portfolio system motors students to success and improves organisational efficiency

By introducing the OneFile e–portfolio system, the Motor Vehicle department at Huntingdonshire Regional College has revolutionised its teaching and learning delivery, improved organisational efficiency, and helped students achieve qualifications quicker. Bundles of paper have been scrapped, students can now upload video and audio as reflective evidence, and assessors no longer have to go on unnecessary visits to collect papers and signatures. What's more, the department has saved time and money, diversified learning and made an impact on its carbon footprint.

Leap2A: Enabling e-portfolio portability

Leap2A is an open specification for transferring learner-owned information between different systems. e-Portfolio tools and systems are now widely used by learners to present evidence of learning, achievements and abilities for many purposes, including application for a job or university, assessment or professional accreditation. This briefing provides an overview of the benefits, summary of systems that have supported Leap2A, further information on data portability and links to further resources.

Consumption and portfolio rules whit stochastic hyperbolic discounting

We extend the classic Merton (1969, 1971) problem that investigates the joint consumption-savings and portfolio-selection problem under capital risk by assuming sophisticated but time-inconsistent agents. We introduce stochastic hyperbolic preferences as in Harris and Laibson (2013) and find closed-form solutions for Merton's optimal consumption and portfolio selection problem in continuous time. We find that the portfolio rule remains identical to the time-consistent solution with power utility and no borrowing constraints. However,the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth is unambiguously greater than the time-consistent, exponential case and,importantly, it is also more responsive to changes in risk. These results suggest that hyperbolic discounting with sophisticated agents offers promise for contributing to explaining important aspects of asset market data.

Elements of Decision under Uncertainty with Applications

This work presents the basic elements for the analysis of decision under uncertainty: Expected Utility Theory and its citicisms and risk aversion and its measurement. The concepts of certainty equivalent, risk premium, absolute risk aversion and relative risk aversion, and the "more risk averse than" relation are discussed. The work is completed with several applications of decision making under uncertainty to different economic problems: investment in risky assets and portfolio selection, risk sharing, investment to reduce risk, insurance, taxes and income underreporting, deposit insurance and the value of information.

Gender equality in life insurance

[EN]This project is going to study the implications of the gender of an individual in the rate-setting process of life insurance. In order to do so there is a review of the continuous changes that have taken place in the national and European legislation following the enactment of the Directive 2004/113/EC, as well as its consequences from the prohibition to differentiate the premiums and benefits on the grounds of gender. In this area, the evolution of the Spanish insurance sector and the influence of the new legislation are examined. Furthermore, there is an analysis of the differences between men and women, which to some extent have a direct impact in the management and development of the life insurance companies. Finally, methods to calculate the premium and the benefits are proposed with the purpose of preventing the restrictions imposed by the Directive 2004/113/EC. In order to check the repercussions of the use of unisex tables a comparison is made between the premiums obtained for a whole life insurance by allocating the same weighing to the actuarial male and female mortality tables and those that would result if the distinction by gender were allowed.

Proceso de creación del “Competitor and Market Report” para cubrir las necesidades de información de la alta dirección de Zurich Insurance Ltd.

Proceso del Competitor and Market Report para cubrir las necesidades de información de la Alta Dirección de Zurich Insurance plc, para la unidad de negocio Global Corporate (GC) en la región de Europa Medio Oriente y África (EMEA) “ El Competitor and Market Report surge de la situación de desinformación en la que los altos directivos y los representantes de CD&M GCiEMEA de cada país se encuentran. Este trabajo consiste en estudiar todo el proceso de creación del Competitor and Market Report, empezando por la identificación del problema, búsqueda de soluciones e implementación y puesta en marcha de la solución. Este proceso nos obligara a inventariar y analizar los estudios que hasta el momento la empresa de seguros Zurich Insurance Ltd, recibía procedentes de fuentes externas o de distintos departamentos que rara vez estaban coordinados en la producción de estos informes. Analizaremos cuales son las áreas de información que estos informes no cubren. El proceso nos obligara a realizar un trabajo de campo. Haremos entrevistas que nos ayudaran a comprender mejor las necesidades de información de los altos directivos. A partir de los resultados anteriores se justificará la creación del Competitor and Market Report, y se estudiará todo el proceso de creación y puesta en marcha de un informe que cubra las necesidades anteriores.