Abstract In this paper we make an empirical analysis of a wide range of claims development trapezoids following Benford’s law. In particular we determine Benfors’s law for different characteristic factors depending on claims development triangles/trapezoids. These characteristic factors are the cumulative claims payments, the incremental claims payments and the individual development factors. For each characteristic factor hypothesis testing is done for verifying/rejecting Benford’s law.

Abstract This paper studies the association between price of crude oil and the Pakistani Rupee-US Dollar exchange. Asymmetric power autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (APARCH) model is used to measure the influence of oil price on the nominal exchange rate using daily data of extreme oil price volatility (2006 – 2013). This model is found to fit the data well and the results reveal a high degree of volatility persistence and leverage effect in returns. This study also establishes a positive association between currency exchange rate and oil price. These findings provide insight into the transmission link between the global oil market and exchange rate.

Abstract Expert systems, a type of artificial intelligence that replicate how experts think, can aide unskilled users in making decisions or apply an expert’s thought process to a sample much larger than could be examined by a human expert. In this paper, an expert system that ranks financial securities using fuzzy membership functions is developed and applied to form portfolios. Our results indicate that this approach to form stock portfolios can result in superior returns than the market as measured by the return on the S&P 500. These portfolios may also provide superior risk-adjusted returns when compared to the market.

Abstract Stochastic agro-economic model GLOBIOM is used to demonstrate how best to design and evaluate the CAP’s financial and structural measures, both individually and jointly, in the face of inherent uncertainty and risk. The model accounts for plausible shocks simultaneously and derives measures that are robust against all shock scenarios; it can thus help avoid the irreversibility and sunk costs that occur in unexpected scenarios.To allow adequate agricultural production, we show that the distribution of CAP funds needs to account for exposure to risks, security targets, and the synergies between policy measures, including production, trade, storage, and irrigation technologies.