Leases for Lives
eBook - PDF

Leases for Lives

Life Contingent Contracts and the Emergence of Actuarial Science in Eighteenth-Century England

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Leases for Lives

Life Contingent Contracts and the Emergence of Actuarial Science in Eighteenth-Century England

About this book

Many historians of insurance have commented on the disconnect between the rise of English life insurance companies in the early eighteenth century and the mathematics behind the sound pricing of life insurance products that was developed at about the same time. Insurance and annuity promoters typically ignored this mathematical work. Bellhouse explores this issue, and shows that the early mathematical work was not motivated by insurance but instead by the fair valuation of life contingent contracts related to property. Even the work of the mathematician James Dodson in the creation of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, offering sound actuarially based premiums, did not change the industry in any significant way. The tipping point was a crisis in 1770 in which the philosopher and mathematician Richard Price, as well as other mathematicians, showed that a dozen or more recently formed annuity societies could not meet their financial obligations and were inviable.

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Yes, you can access Leases for Lives by David R. Bellhouse in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Economics & Statistics for Business & Economics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Imprints Page
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Preface
  8. Acknowledgments
  9. 1 Introduction
  10. 2 Mathematics and Property in the Seventeenth Century
  11. 3 Edmond Halley’s Life Table
  12. 4 Halley’s Impact or Lack of It
  13. 5 De Moivre and His Early Influence
  14. 6 Mathematicians as Consultants
  15. 7 Mathematicians and Early Life Insurance Companies
  16. 8 The Annuity Bubble of the 1760s and 1770s
  17. 9 The Aftershocks of the Bubble, Their Impact on Life Annuities
  18. 10 Developments in the Life Insurance Industry in the Later Eighteenth Century
  19. 11 A Return to Roots
  20. 12 Conclusion
  21. Appendix 1: Technical Appendix
  22. Appendix 2: Life Tables
  23. End Notes
  24. Bibliography
  25. Index