In this paper we investigate whether the dynamic properties of the U.S. business cycle have changed in the last fifty years. For this purpose we develop a flexible business cycle indicator that is constructed from a moderate set of macroeconomic time series. The coincident economic indicator is...

In this paper, we review pricing of variable annuity living and death guarantees offered to retail investors in many countries. Investors purchase these products to take advantage of market growth and protect savings. We present pricing of these products via an optimal stochastic control...

Exponential functionals of Brownian motion have been extensively studied in nancial and insurance mathematics due to their broad applications, for example, in the pricing of Asian options. The Black-Scholes model is appealing because of mathematical tractability, yet empirical evidence shows...