Regulators, investors, consumers, and insurance brokers use insurer financial strength ratings to evaluate the insolvency risk of insurers. This article investigates the factors influencing the decision to obtain a rating or multiple ratings, the determinants of ratings for the three major insurer rating agencies, and reasons for differences in ratings across agencies. This study indicates that...

We conduct an experiment to determine the effect of ambiguity on status quo bias. We find no evidence of the bias in the absence of ambiguity and when ambiguity is present both in the status quo option and the alternative. We do find evidence for status quo bias under asymmetric presence of ambiguity, i.e. when the status quo option is non-ambiguous and the alternative is, or when the status qu...

iii ABSTRACT OF THESIS OPTIMISTIC BIAS IN RELATION TO HURRICANE RISK Public officials in the natural disaster field benefit from knowing whether individuals tend to underestimate or overestimate the dangers they could face from future hurricanes. Correcting hurricane risk misperceptions can encourage individuals living in coastal regions to take action and prepare themselves for the next hurric...

Small Area estimation is a technique used to estimate parameters of subpopulations with small sample sizes.  Small area estimation is needed  in obtaining information on a small area, such as sub-district or village.  Generally, in some cases, small area estimation uses parametric modeling.  But in fact, a lot of models have no linear relationship between the small area average and the covariat...

conclusions high quality research is needed to establish the true portray for the prevalence and severity of vasomotor and sexual symptoms associated with distress in iranian women. context the aim of this study was to systematically review published articles reporting on the prevalence of vasomotor and sexual symptoms in iranian women. evidence acquisition five databases including medline, psy...