For insurance companies in Europe, the introduction of Solvency II leads to a tightening of rules for solvency capital provision. In life insurance, this especially affects retirement products that ...contain a significant portion of longevity risk (e.g., conventional annuities). Insurance companies might react by price increases for those products, and, at the same time, might think of alternatives that shift longevity risk (at least partially) to policyholders. In the extreme case, this leads to so-called tontine products where the insurance company’s role is merely administrative and longevity risk is shared within a pool of policyholders. From the policyholder’s viewpoint, such products are, however, not desirable as they lead to a high uncertainty of retirement income at old ages. In this article, we alternatively suggest a so-called tonuity that combines the appealing features of tontine and conventional annuity. Until some fixed age (the switching time), a tonuity’s payoff is tontine-like, afterwards the policyholder receives a secure payment of a (deferred) annuity. A tonuity is attractive for both the retiree (who benefits from a secure income at old ages) and the insurance company (whose capital requirements are reduced compared to conventional annuities). The tonuity is a possibility to offer tailor-made retirement products: using risk capital charges linked to Solvency II, we show that retirees with very low or very high risk aversion prefer a tontine or conventional annuity, respectively. Retirees with medium risk aversion, however, prefer a tonuity. In a utility-based framework, we therefore determine the optimal tonuity characterized by the critical switching time that maximizes the policyholder’s lifetime utility.
The article explores how people in Kunming have interpreted and acted upon food-related environmental health threats, particularly within the contexts of everyday food shopping. It is argued that an ...increasingly intensified, delocalized food supply system and a state-led emphasis on individual responsibility and choice have produced growing uncertainties about food. However, the article takes issue with the claim that new forms of risk and institutional changes have produced “individualized” responses, arguing that many of the practices Kunmingers have developed to handle food-related risks and their understandings of what constitutes “safe” food have been developed within the frameworks of family ties and regional cuisine. Further, shoppers and purveyors of food have forged new ties of trust and re-emphasized connections between people, food and place. Nevertheless, concerns about the food supply are a source of discontent which is feeding into wider ambivalences towards modernization. This is particularly acute among the economically disadvantaged.
The article explores recent materials, including cookbooks and a television documentary, backed by the state to promote the potato as a Chinese staple food. These materials attempt to convince ...would-be eaters that the tuber is a highly nutritious food, suited to modern lifestyles and health concerns, and that it is both cosmopolitan and embedded in Chinese regional food traditions. They articulate a moral economy of food in which the market is a key mechanism for achieving the greater good of national grain security and a healthy population, and in which state and citizen are jointly responsible for “nourishing the people.” Consumers are encouraged to purchase potatoes and potato foods not only to cultivate their own health, but also out of a duty to the well-being of the country. In framing potato-eating as a patriotic act, potato campaigns chime with emerging practices in China of “ethical food consumption.”
This article charts the changing meanings of meat in contemporary urban China and explores the role played by Buddhist vegetarian restaurants in shaping these changes. In Kunming, meat has long been ...a sign of prosperity and status. Its accessibility marked the successes of the economic reforms. Yet Kunmingers were increasingly concerned about excessive meat consumption and about the safety and quality of the meat supply. Buddhist vegetarian restaurants provided spaces where people could share meat-free meals and discuss and develop their concerns about meat-eating. While similar to and influenced by secular, Western vegetarianisms, the central role of Buddhism was reflected in discourses on karmic retribution for taking life and in a non-confrontational approach that sought to accommodate these discourses with the importance of meat in Chinese social life. Finally, the vegetarian restaurants spoke to middle-class projects of self-cultivation, and by doing so potentially challenged associations between meat-eating and social status.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Some recent literature studies whether contracts including financial guarantees can be preferred by a utility-maximizing investor. The main result for contracts exposed solely to financial risk (e.g. ...Døskeland and Nordahl, 2008; Dichtl and Drobetz, 2011) is that expected utility theory (EUT) fails to interpret demand for guarantees, while cumulative prospect theory (CPT) is able to support the demand. While the development of the financial market has a significant impact on the portfolio choice, some other non-financial risk might play an important role too. In the present paper, we take life insurance products as an example, where the long term nature of these contracts places a special emphasis on the uncertain lifetime of the investor. We incorporate the mortality risk and investigate its effect on the attractiveness of contracts offering minimum interest rate guarantees to EUT- and CPT-investors. For this purpose, we introduce two approaches for the consideration of multiple risk sources within CPT. We illustrate the theoretical framework with numerous simulations and our numerical results show that a long-term risk-averse EUT-investor prefers products with guarantees.
The author discusses the heritagization of local foods in China, based on his ethnographic research into the production, marketing, and consumption of rubing or "milk cake," a goat milk cheese made ...in Yunnan province in the southwest of the country. The article draws attention to regional and ethnic dimensions to heritagization processes in China, sheds light on the relationship between heritagization and state projects of agricultural modernization, and raises critical questions about the opportunities and challenges for smallholder producers to create and capture value in the growing market for Chinese local heritage foods.
Interest in the anthropology of food has grown significantly in recent years. This is the first handbook to provide a detailed overview of all major areas of the field. Twenty original essays by ...leading figures in the discipline examine traditional areas of research as well as cutting-edge areas of inquiry. Divided into three parts – Food, Self and Others; Food Security, Nutrition and Food Safety; Food as Craft, Industry and Ethics – the book covers topics such as identity, commensality, locality, migration, ethical consumption, artisanal foods, and children's food. Each chapter features rich ethnography alongside wider analysis of the subject. Internationally renowned scholars offer insights into their core areas of specialty. Examples include Michael Herzfeld on culinary stereotypes, David Sutton on how to conduct an anthropology of cooking, Johan Pottier on food insecurity, and Melissa Caldwell on practicing food anthropology. The book also features exceptional geographic and cultural diversity, with chapters on South Asia, South Africa, the United States of America, post-socialist societies, Maoist China, and Muslim and Jewish foodways. Invaluable as a reference as well as for teaching, The Handbook of Food and Anthropology serves to define this increasingly important field. An essential resource for researchers and students in anthropology and food studies.
The article discusses recent attempts by an environmental NGO to promote the consumption of organic foods among residents in Kunming, Southwest China. Far from being elitist, activists engaged with ...popular environmental culture and with widespread concerns around health and food safety, and echoed advertisers' messages that associated the ‘healthfulness’ of organic foods with ‘nature’. The article also discusses two private organic food enterprises. Like the NGO, these enterprises attempted to both engage with popular concerns and educate consumers, and it is argued that the study of environmentalism and ethical consumption in urban China should include both NGOs and profit‐oriented enterprises.
The article discusses recent attempts by an environmental NGO to promote the consumption of organic foods among residents in Kunming, Southwest China. Far from being elitist, activists engaged with ...popular environmental culture and with widespread concerns around health and food safety, and echoed advertisers' messages that associated the 'healthfulness' of organic foods with 'nature'. The article also discusses two private organic food enterprises. Like the NGO, these enterprises attempted to both engage with popular concerns and educate consumers, and it is argued that the study of environmentalism and ethical consumption in urban China should include both NGOs and profit-oriented enterprises. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press. An electronic version of this article can be accessed via the internet at http://journals.cambridge.org
PDF
