Call for Papers
Willis Economic Capital Forum (WECF)

The Willis Economic Capital Forum (WECF) is a collaborative relationship between the Willis Research Network (WRN) and Georgia State University (GSU). The research center was founded in 2012 and is housed in Georgia State University's Department of Risk Management and Insurance. The mission of the WECF is to advance applied research on the topic of internal economic capital models used by insurers worldwide, and to accelerate implementation of such models in corporate settings. More information can be found at http://www.wecf.gsu.edu

RESEARCH AREAS: The Willis Economic Capital Forum has determined four areas on which it focuses its research efforts:
- Models in a competitive, dynamic environment
- Model validation
- Applications of economic capital
- Alternative frameworks: Beyond capital modeling

A description of the topics can be found below. The major industry focus is on property-casualty insurance

APPROACH AND PROJECT TYPES: The Forum seeks to advance applied research and accelerate the implementation of their results in corporate settings. Consequently, we consider funding for two types of projects:
- Transmission or implementation projects Transmission projects start from existing academic results and strive to make them applicable in corporate settings. They can be viewed as engineering a solution and thus, such proposals should mention in which real-world environment the results will be tested. Preferably, a validation partner should be part of the project.
- Applied research projects The goal of this type of project is to develop new approaches or theories for modeling challenges in the insurance industry. As such, proposers must carefully describe the practice-inspired problem being researched in addition to documenting the academic merit of the proposal.

Projects that relate exclusively to banking, asset modeling or life insurance will not be considered for funding. Transmission projects which attempt to transfer methods from these domains to property-casualty insurance are welcome.

Proposals have to be below $50,000.

PROPOSAL PROCESS: Professor Markus Stricker, the Forum Director, will collect proposals and propose funding requests to the Management Board of WECF which will take the final decision to approve funding.

We encourage you to submit a short proposal that will initiate discussion about potential projects. Based on mutual interest, a fully fully-fledged proposal will be requested. Preference will be given to proposals submitted by 29 April 2013 to:

Markus A. Stricker, PhD
Director of the Willis Economic Capital Forum
Department of Risk Management and Insurance
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 4036 Atlanta, GA
30302-4036
Office: (+1 404)-413-7475
Cell: (+1 404)-987-9919
Email: mstricker@gsu.edu

RESEARCH AREAS: The Forum's research efforts focus on the following topics:

Models in a competitive, dynamic environment: Current economic capital models often ignore the effect of the competitive and dynamic environment. This research stream will address how elements of market dynamics and competition can be brought into the economic capital model to help companies better assess risk and make more effective strategic decisions.

Model validation: As economic capital models - standard or internal models - are increasingly used for solvency monitoring and other business-critical purposes, it is imperative that the industry establish effective protocols for model validation. This work stream includes both process and technical aspects of model validation.

Applications of economic capital: Firms use economic capital to test strategic alternatives, establish technical pricing, set baselines for incentive compensation, and many other purposes. This work stream seeks to discover if there are particular model features that lend themselves especially well to specific applications.

Alternative frameworks: Beyond capital modeling: Models of economic capital are powerful tools - but that does not mean that capital models are the best instrument to address every issue. In this work stream we seek to will develop methodologies that can supplement economic capital to provide more robust, more insightful quantitative risk-based decisions.