• Research softwareclose
• Other research productsclose
• 2019-2023close
• CH close
• GB close
• English close
• Alexandria Research Platform close

Digitalisation remains the megatrend in the insurance industry. As big data feeds on new sources of information such as smart watches and fitness trackers, artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive algorithms are boosted to yield user-specific insurance products.

We often read in order to understand, but sometimes we read in order to cope. And nearly always, we need to understand in order to cope. “Coping” is arguably one of the most used verbs these days, heard as frequently as wishes for good health and safety. The books we pick up in order to cope with the current crisis sometimes reflect a desire to escape, a desire that might be fulfilled by comedies, romances, and classic whodunits. Or sometimes we want to face an even deeper abyss, reflect on how much worse the situation could get (with, e.g., Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider), how much worse it once was (see Michael Buhler’s recent review of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year[i]), or how much worse it never will be (Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games, hopefully). Many media thus provide those seeking guidance with reading list, covering every possible genre. Thankfully, a nowadays less widely read author sometimes also makes it onto these lists: William Keepers Maxwell, Jr. (1908-2000).

Participating life insurance contracts are common products in Europe. Their savings component typically exhibits an interest rate guarantee in combination with a surplus participation mechanism. Together, these two features constitute an embedded option. The purpose of this article is to show how an insurance company can maximize policyholder utility by setting the level of the interest rate guarantee in line with his preferences. We develop a general model of life insurance, taking stochastic interest rates, early default and regular premium payments into account. Furthermore, we assume that equity holders receive risk adequate returns on their initial equity contribution. Our findings show that the optimal level for the interest rate guarantee is far below the maximum value typically set by the supervisory authorities.

The expansive monetary policy conducted by the ECB in the past few years involves risks. However, the typical criticisms of the ECB are unjustified. The euro area would even be well advised to provide the ECB with rule-based monetization of public debt as additional policy instrument.

The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is marked by an intensive digitalisation process. Within this process, digital data (physical information converted into digital) and digital technologies restructure how things are done and values created. Various initiatives and strategies from the very recent AU Data Policy Framework to the Africa Digital Transformation Strategy (ADTS), the Smart Africa Manifesto and the E-Commerce Protocol of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is still under discussion, are intended to galvanise such processes. Digital economy and e-commerce survive and thrive through a web of complex contractual and noncontractual relationships between actors, including consumers, businesses and governments. These relationships are regulated to varying degrees – some remaining even entirely unregulated. The regulatory disparity coupled with path dependent asymmetric relationship between actors shape the degree of leverage they might have over the operation and outcome of such connectivity. Weak and fragmented regulation in areas such as consumer, data and privacy protection on the one hand risks enabling those in control of capital and political power, the corporations and governments, to configure the digitalization process to their interest (i.e., profit and power maximization). On the other hand, weak regulation in such areas means leaving users with weak or no protection and hence, erode consumers’ trust to make use of and benefit from the digital transformation. In addition, leverage over the operation and outcome of such connectivity is impacted by existing and emergent constraints such as: digital divide, infrastructural challenges, misfit between Intellectual Property (IP) system and emerging data driven technologies, and taxes, tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Most importantly, transformation and connectivity outcomes are shaped also by historical and existing institutional, regulatory and societal cultures and embedded power relationships.

Einkauf und Beschaffung haben oft auch eine Schattenseite: Die Korruption. Wo genau beginnt wirtschaftliches Fehlverhalten? Wer trägt die Verantwortung und wer prüft, ob Einkäufe und Projektvergaben sauber ablaufen? Forensik-Experte Dr. Alexander Schuchter über die Bestechlichkeit in der Wirtschaft.

Die Fifa kann sich fast alles erlauben, sagt ein Wirtschaftsethiker. Auch, weil Regierungen und Verbände wie der DFB nicht eingreifen. Deshalb bleibt die WM in Katar. Interview von Nico Horn

Understanding the link between maturity and performance provides a competitive advantage for companies on their way to continuous improvement. This article illustrates the St.Gallen operational excellence (OPEX) model’s concept of site performance and maturity, bringing both perspectives together in a holistic framework.