Published:
Andrew J. G. Cairns, Professor of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics in the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, is this year's recipient of the Robert I. Mehr Award. The American Risk and Insurance Association presents the Robert I. Mehr Award each year for the paper published ten years ago in The Journal of Risk and Insurance that has best stood the test of time, and is one of the major international awards in the field of risk and insurance.
This paper marked the start of an enduring programme of longevity risk research that continues to this day with growing impact in both academia and the insurance and pensions industry.
Professor Cairns co-authored the paper with David Blake and Kevin Dowd. The article considers the evolution of the post-age-60 mortality curve in the UK and its impact on the pricing of the risk associated with aggregate mortality improvements over time, the so-called longevity risk.
The evaluation of the articles is made by the editorial board of the Journal of Risk and Insurance, who this year chose Professor Cairns' paper titled 'A Two-Factor Model for Stochastic Mortality with Parameter Uncertainty: Theory and Calibration'. Ten years on, the 'CBD model' proposed in the paper now serves as a benchmark in the field of longevity risk modelling and is widely used in the insurance industry and the article is now the most cited paper in the history of the Journal.
Professor Cairns said, "My co-authors and I are delighted to receive this award ten years after publication of the original article. This paper marked the start of an enduring programme of longevity risk research that continues to this day with growing impact in both academia and the insurance and pensions industry. It is great to see the original paper recognised in this way."