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Nürtingen, FH, Bachelor, 2004. / Betreuer: Uwe Stehr.

This is a multi–essay dissertation in the area of mortality risk management. The first essay investigates natural hedging between life insurance and annuities and then proposes a mortality swap between a life insurer and an annuity insurer. Compared with reinsurance, capital markets have a greater capacity to absorb insurance shocks, and they may offer more flexibility to meet insurers’ needs. Therefore, my second essay studies securitization of mortality risks in life annuities. Specifically I design a mortality bond to transfer longevity risks inherent in annuities or pension plans to financial markets. By explicitly taking into account the jumps in mortality stochastic processes, my third essay fills a gap in the mortality securitization modeling literature by pricing mortality securities in an incomplete market framework. Using the Survey of Consumer Finances, my fourth essay creates a new financial vulnerability index to examine a household’s life cycle demand for different types of life insurance.

Konstanz, Univ., Diss., 2009.

This thesis analyzes Sweden's unique and puzzling approach to the COVID-19 pandemic by using the securitization framework, exploring if Sweden's strategy during the pandemic's first year reflects securitization, (de)securitization, or non-securitization. It employs content analysis to evaluate Sweden's response, analyzing primary sources and academic literature, and uses a discourse table based on existing theoretical studies by Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde (1998) and Lene Hansen (2012) to assess indicators of securitization, (de)securitization or non-securitization. The study finds that initially, Sweden combined (de)securitization and non-securitization, led by the state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell and the Public Health Agency of Sweden (PHAS), treating the virus as a manageable health issue within existing healthcare systems. However, as the pandemic progressed, the Swedish government, led by Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, adopted a securitization strategy, framing COVID-19 as a significant national health threat. This shift illustrates the dynamic roles of various actors in pandemic discourse. The thesis argues against a binary view of securitization and (de)securitization, showing their fluid application in real-world crises. It highlights the interaction between scientific and political decision-making in crisis management, suggesting a spectrum of responses involving (de)securitization and non-securitization.

This paper aims to make an empirical contribution to the discussion of the role of banks and to find out if banking is a declining industry. It takes into account that the role of banks is declining in the United States and the fact that the American economy usually sets the trend for the other economies. This implies that there are increasing trends of disintermediation, securitization and an increase in the importance of nonbank financial intermediaries (Schmidt, Hackethal and Tyrell 1997). This paper seeks to find out if this is indeed the case in the U.S and if so then is it happening in other European and African economies. Another important reason for this study is to find out what factors are causing the structures of financial systems to change and what impact these changes have on financial institution intermediation. Comparisons are made between developed countries in Europe and developing countries in Africa to observe the trends of intermediation/disintermediation.

This thesis looks at the Indonesian government’s strategy for managing the threat of terrorism between 2001 and 2006. Various socio-political factors such as the importance of Islam in Indonesian society and politics, ongoing democratization and important civil-military reform all contribute to an environment where counterterrorism efforts are both necessary and politically risky. In order to better address the many complexities of the Indonesian case study, this thesis uses a modified securitization theory framework which gives increased weight to the political and social context in which securitization decisions are made. The modified framework disaggregates the decision of an agent to rhetorically securitize an issue from the decisions behind subsequent policy actions, and considers separately the motivations behind each. When applied to the Indonesian case study this modified framework reveals that between 2002 and 2006, President Megawati Soekarnoputri and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono managed terrorism by employing a combination of securitizing and criminalizing strategies. It additionally reveals that for each president the non-discursive policy action was not solely result of the success or failure of discursive securitization, but was also dependent on the specific political environment each faced.

This is a multi–essay dissertation in the area of mortality risk management. The first essay investigates natural hedging between life insurance and annuities and then proposes a mortality swap between a life insurer and an annuity insurer. Compared with reinsurance, capital markets have a greater capacity to absorb insurance shocks, and they may offer more flexibility to meet insurers’ needs. Therefore, my second essay studies securitization of mortality risks in life annuities. Specifically I design a mortality bond to transfer longevity risks inherent in annuities or pension plans to financial markets. By explicitly taking into account the jumps in mortality stochastic processes, my third essay fills a gap in the mortality securitization modeling literature by pricing mortality securities in an incomplete market framework. Using the Survey of Consumer Finances, my fourth essay creates a new financial vulnerability index to examine a household’s life cycle demand for different types of life insurance.

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This thesis looks at the Indonesian government’s strategy for managing the threat of terrorism between 2001 and 2006. Various socio-political factors such as the importance of Islam in Indonesian society and politics, ongoing democratization and important civil-military reform all contribute to an environment where counterterrorism efforts are both necessary and politically risky. In order to better address the many complexities of the Indonesian case study, this thesis uses a modified securitization theory framework which gives increased weight to the political and social context in which securitization decisions are made. The modified framework disaggregates the decision of an agent to rhetorically securitize an issue from the decisions behind subsequent policy actions, and considers separately the motivations behind each. When applied to the Indonesian case study this modified framework reveals that between 2002 and 2006, President Megawati Soekarnoputri and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono managed terrorism by employing a combination of securitizing and criminalizing strategies. It additionally reveals that for each president the non-discursive policy action was not solely result of the success or failure of discursive securitization, but was also dependent on the specific political environment each faced.