Stochastic Orders in Reliability and Risk Management is composed of 19 contributions on the theory of stochastic orders, stochastic comparison of order statistics, stochastic orders in reliability and risk analysis, and applications. These review/exploratory chapters present recent and current research on stochastic orders reported at the International Workshop on Stochastic Orders in Reliability and Risk Management, or SORR2011, which took place in the City Hotel, Xiamen, China, from June 27 to June 29, 2011. The conference’s talks and invited contributions also represent the celebration of Professor Moshe Shaked, who has made comprehensive, fundamental contributions to the theory of stochastic orders and its applications in reliability, queueing modeling, operations research, economics and risk analysis. This volume is in honor of Professor Moshe Shaked. The work presented in this volume represents active research on stochastic orders and multivariate dependence, and exemplifies close collaborations between scholars working in different fields. The Xiamen Workshop and this volume seek to revive the community workshop tradition on stochastic orders and dependence and strengthen research collaboration, while honoring the work of a distinguished scholar.

Stochastic orders and inequalities are being used at an accelerated rate in many diverse areas of probability and statistics. This book provides the first unified, systematic, and accessible treatment of stochasticorders, addressing the growing importance of these orders with the presentation of numerous results that illustrate their usefulness and applicability. Ten insightful chapters emphasize the applications by specialists in probability and statistics, economics, operations research, and reliability theory. Applications include multivariate variability, epidemics, comparisons of risk and risk aversion, scheduling, and systems reliability theory.

Quantitative finance is a combination of economics, accounting, statistics, econometrics, mathematics, stochastic process, and computer science and technology. Increasingly, the tools of financial analysis are being applied to assess, monitor, and mitigate risk, especially in the context of globalization, market volatility, and economic crisis. This two-volume handbook, comprised of over 100 chapters, is the most comprehensive resource in the field to date, integrating the most current theory, methodology, policy, and practical applications. Showcasing contributions from an international array of experts, the Handbook of Quantitative Finance and Risk Management is unparalleled in the breadth and depth of its coverage. Volume 1 presents an overview of quantitative finance and risk management research, covering the essential theories, policies, and empirical methodologies used in the field. Chapters provide in-depth discussion of portfolio theory and investment analysis. Volume 2 covers options and option pricing theory and risk management. Volume 3 presents a wide variety of models and analytical tools. Throughout, the handbook offers illustrative case examples, worked equations, and extensive references; additional features include chapter abstracts, keywords, and author and subject indices. From "arbitrage" to "yield spreads," the Handbook of Quantitative Finance and Risk Management will serve as an essential resource for academics, educators, students, policymakers, and practitioners.

A bibliography on stochastic orderings. Was there a real need for it? In a time of reference databases as the MathSci or the Science Citation Index or the Social Science Citation Index the answer seems to be negative. The reason we think that this bibliog raphy might be of some use stems from the frustration that we, as workers in the field, have often experienced by finding similar results being discovered and proved over and over in different journals of different disciplines with different levels of mathematical so phistication and accuracy and most of the times without cross references. Of course it would be very unfair to blame an economist, say, for not knowing a result in mathematical physics, or vice versa, especially when the problems and the languages are so far apart that it is often difficult to recognize the analogies even after further scrutiny. We hope that collecting the references on this topic, regardless of the area of application, will be of some help, at least to pinpoint the problem. We use the term stochastic ordering in a broad sense to denote any ordering relation on a space of probability measures. Questions that can be related to the idea of stochastic orderings are as old as probability itself. Think for instance of the problem of comparing two gambles in order to decide which one is more favorable.

An understanding of risk and how to deal with it is an essential part of modern economics. Whether liability litigation for pharmaceutical firms or an individual's having insufficient wealth to retire, risk is something that can be recognized, quantified, analyzed, treated--and incorporated into our decision-making processes. This book represents a concise summary of basic multiperiod decision-making under risk. Its detailed coverage of a broad range of topics is ideally suited for use in advanced undergraduate and introductory graduate courses either as a self-contained text, or the introductory chapters combined with a selection of later chapters can represent core reading in courses on macroeconomics, insurance, portfolio choice, or asset pricing. The authors start with the fundamentals of risk measurement and risk aversion. They then apply these concepts to insurance decisions and portfolio choice in a one-period model. After examining these decisions in their one-period setting, they devote most of the book to a multiperiod context, which adds the long-term perspective most risk management analyses require. Each chapter concludes with a discussion of the relevant literature and a set of problems. The book presents a thoroughly accessible introduction to risk, bridging the gap between the traditionally separate economics and finance literatures.