The surrender of life policies accounts for a large proportion of the total outgo of life assurance companies, in 1987 amounting to £3.6bn or 46% of funds returned to policyholders. In practice most surrenders involve a simple two way interaction in which a policyholder requests a surrender price from the issuing office, and accepts the value without question or negotiation. However, the increasing volume of surrenders, coupled with increasing dissatisfaction of policyholders with the level of surrender prices, has lead to the emergence and development of an imperfect and unorganised market in secondary policies. This market trades less than 5% of the potential volume of tradeable policies. The volume of surrender and the absence of an organised market (which could provide alternative purchasers of mid-term policies, competition and improved values) provides the context and underlying hypothesis for the study. From observation, it appeared that, for the market to evolve, the following developments were necessary. i) A level of organisation and co-operation in which intermediaries co-ordinate the offer for sale from large numbers of individual policyholders with secondary investor's offers to purchase large volumes of policies. ii) Computerised procedures for valuing policies and bundling them appropriately to meet the needs of investors. The research project was interactive with the developing secondary market and included a close involvement in the development of a sophisticated trading system for one group of companies. The Thesis The heart of the thesis is the development of a number of algorithms which are designed to value portfolios of secondary life policies. The valuation procedure uses a discounted cashflow approach which allows the calculation of IRR on the basis of expectations about the future bonus performance of life offices. For each policy there is a statistically measurable chance of the policyholder dying before the maturity date. The implicit value of this effect is accounted for in the valuation procedure. The valuation procedure is based upon an understanding of the sorts of policies likely to be available, the valuation services demanded and the sorts of investment products which may be created through the bundling and packaging of policies. This understanding is developed througha study of the economic interrelationships between policyholder and issuing office and from the viability study of the level of surrender demand in the market and the size of margins between surrender and investment value.

While most advertising studies examine the promotion of goods, this study of 50 years of British bank advertising examines the promotion of intangible services (money). After World War Two, regulatory and social changes propelled British banks into the market. The banks employed marketing communication to accommodate themselves to an emerging consumer society in three phases: pre-marketing (after 1950), expansionary (after 1970) and saturation (after 1985) periods. A content analysis of key psycho-social values contained in 805 post-1950 print and television advertisements revealed the banks' adjustment to an increasingly 'de-traditionalised' society in which citizens had to be addressed as autonomous, consuming subjects. Applying Marchand's (1986) insights into the therapeutic role of advertising, the study reflects on how advertising agencies assuaged the publics' institutional alienation with comforting metaphors of the 'friendly bank'; addressed countercultural disdain to a mass society by affirming individuality within a rhetoric of customised services and empowered consumers (Frank, 1997); and counteracted cynicism towards a glutted promotional culture by constructing more 'diverse', 'realist', and 'authentic' messages. The advertisements also articulated new money values, softening the transition from a productionist or war economy (in which money was represented as scarce, precious, and in need of safekeeping) to a consumer economy (in which money was an abundant necessity, in need of constant circulation). Credit, the enabling instrument of this circulation, was presented as a viable means to maintain and extend one's lifestyle. 'Identity work' and 'money work' appeared to be intertwined deeply in a consumer culture. The discussion of values was extended with a design analysis of bank television branding campaigns, which found that practical values coexisted with postmodem sensibilities. Further, a reception study of 31 young people's interpretation of 9 television campaigns describes how they engaged with advertisements as both media-literate audiences seeking entertainment (and speculating about the intention behind the advertising codes), as well as financial consumers looking for survival tips in the consumer economy. The study also revealed underlying tensions in the banks' contemporary practices: marketbased pressures for brand distinction vs. price competition; consumers' demands for practical fmancial information vs. pressures of communicating in a promotional culture; and profit-driven openness to all consumers vs. market exigencies of targeting profitable niches.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

In January 1982 marine cargo insurance was the subject of a very radical change on the London marine insurance market. The changes included the abandonment of the historical S. G. policy and institute clauses of 1963. The market introduced the new MAR policy and a new set of standard cargo clauses, designated A, B, and C. The new Institute Cargo Clauses were designed for use on an international basis and have been adopted in many foreign maritime insurance markets. Subsequent to their introduction they have attracted much attention and debate. The main aim of this research is to thoroughly examine, explain and evaluate all the provisions of the Institute Cargo Clauses, and to assess their success and points of weakness. As the clauses constitute the terms of the relevant contract of marine insurance they must be considered in the context of the Marine Insurance Act of 1906, and also the applicable law cases. The clauses have been investigated on the presumption that English law and practice applies. This thesis also includes a comparison with Jordanian law, with an ancillary section concerned with the placing of marine cargo cover in the Jordanian market where the Institute Cargo Clauses have been adopted, and with the relevant marine insurance provisions in the Jordan Maritime Commercial Law of 1972 also examined. The thesis comprises 11 chapters: except for the first three chapters all follow the structure of the clauses. In summary, the first chapter describes the basic features of the London market and defines its role as the overseer of insurance conditions. This is coupled with an overview of developments in the practical stages of placing cargo cover. The second chapter deals with features of the Jordanian insurance market and reviews the statutes governing its activities, including cargo cover, and the system adopted in placing insurance cover. The third chapter is a linking chapter which gives a brief account of the old system of marine cargo cover and discusses the reasons behind the radical changes in the London market in 1982. Chapter Four deals with the risks covered in the A, B, and C clauses respectively, particular attention being given to all risks cover as it is the most common form used in cargo insurance. Chapter Five analyses the exclusions in the Institute Cargo Clauses with special reference to the General Exclusions Clauses (cl . 4) and the War Exclusion Clause(cl 6) as these provide the most common intersection between `perils insured' and `perils excluded'. Chapter Six discusses the `Duration Clauses', with special consideration being given to the Transit Clause. `Deviation' and `Change of Voyage' are discussed and compared with the relevant statutory provisions in the M. I. A 1906. Chapter Seven deals with claims. Consideration, in particular, is given to the Insurable Interest and Constructive Total Loss clauses. Chapter Eight is devoted to evaluating the effect of inserting the `Benefit of Insurance' Clause in a carriage of goods by sea contract and the impact of the `Not to inure' Clause in marine cargo cover. Chapter Nine examines, in considerable depth, the minimising losses clauses, by discussing the impact of the `Duty of the Assured' Clause and the contradiction between the statutory sue and labour clause in section 78 and section 55 of the M. I. A of 1906. Chapter Ten is concerned with the ambit and the function of the Reasonable Dispatch clause. The last chapter is the conclusion. It is hoped that this work will contribute, with other works in the relevant field, towards a better understanding of underwriting marine cargo cover both in_ the London and the Jordanian markets, and that it may also prove of use and interest to Middle Eastern insurance practitioners and academics.

This thesis investigates the presence of speculative bubbles in the prices of precious metals. The investigation develops in three stages. First, we present the theoretical framework. Second, we carry out an institutional analysis of the gold market. Third, we conduct an econometric investigation using a comprehensive new data set of the prices of gold, silver and platinum. Speculation is a phenomenon strictly related to expectations. Hence, the natural theoretical framework for the study of speculative bubbles begins with a theory of expectations. The theory of speculative bubbles emerges from the non-uniqueness of solutions to rational expectations models. We present the theoretical background on the problem of multiple solutions to rational expectations models. We then critically examine the theoretical and empirical literature on speculative bubbles, pointing out the questions still unanswered in the field. The high volatility and the presumed speculative attacks in the 1970's and 1980's make the prices of gold, silver and platinum a natural choice for investigating the presence of speculative bubbles. An institutional analysis of the gold market show the complexity of the factors determining its price. This thesis adopts two empirical approaches. The first concerns tests of the restrictions that the presence of speculative bubbles impose on the prices of precious metals. In particular, it applies non-parametric tests in the spirit of the Blanchard and Watson (1982) approach to test for bubbles in the price of gold. Their results are contradictory and overall show little evidence of bubbles in the price of gold. In contrast, our results indicate the presence of speculative bubbles in the prices not only of gold, but also of silver and platinum. The second approach which, to our knowledge, has not previously been explored, consists of inferring the presence of bubbles through a comparison of the market fundamentals and the price movements of the three metals. The results provide evidence of the presence of speculative bubbles.

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