Statistical Model Building Research Articles

The impact of computers upon air pollution research.

The electronic computer has had a profound effect upon air pollution research activities. This paper discusses some of the ways in which Public Health Service scientists routinely make use of the computer. It is used as a data processor to handle the large volumes of data resulting from continuous air monitoring devices. More importantly, it is used to perform the very complex computations involved in various statistical analyses and mathematical model building. In future years computers may be used on a real-time basis to control the sources which emit pollutants to the atmosphere.

A Monte Carlo Simulation in Insurance Company Portfolio Management

The use of statistical model building and stimulation has great potential in the area of insurance company portfolio management. These tools enable the insurance executive to ascertain the effects of alternative decisions on his firm and to weigh the relative significance of uncertainty in these decisions. This article, which describes a specific application of statistical model building and simulation in portfolio management, has two purposes. The first is to demonstrate a technique for decision simulation which can be used by property and liability insurance companies to measure the impact of their managerial decisions. The second is to apply the above technique to specific decisions. Two decision areas have been selected for simulation. The first is the decision regarding the size of the bond ratio, the per cent at market value of a given portfolio represented by fixed income securities. The second is the decision as to the size of premium-asset ratio, the ratio of the net premiums written to the total admitted assets. The simulation involves changing these ratios in a model insurance company under conditions in which the