The First International Conference on Insurance Solvency was held at the
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania from June 18th through June
20th, 1986. The conference was the inaugural event for Wharton's Center
for Research on Risk and Insurance. In atten- dance were thirty-nine
representatives from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, the
United Kingdom, and the United States. The papers presented at the
Conference are published in two volumes, this book and a companion
volume, Classical Insurance Solvency Theory, J. D. Cummins and R. A.
Derrig, eds. (Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988). The first
volume presented two papers reflecting important advances in actuarial
solvency theory. The current volume goes beyond the actuarial approach
to encom- pass papers applying the insights and techniques of financial
economics. The papers fall into two groups. The first group con- sists
of papers that adopt an essentially actuarial or statistical ap- proach
to solvency modelling. These papers represent methodology advances over
prior efforts at operational modelling of insurance companies. The
emphasis is on cash flow analysis and many of the models incorporate
investment income, inflation, taxation, and other economic variables.
The papers in second group bring financial economics to bear on various
aspects of solvency analysis. These papers discuss insurance
applications of asset pricing models, capital structure theory, and the
economic theory of agency.