COURSES

INSR 205. Risk Management.
Prerequisite(s): None.
        This course describes the concepts and techniques available to corporations, non-profit organizations, and other organizations in their efforts to manage pure risks. The costs associated with such pure risks as product liability, environmental impairments, property losses, work-related injuries, and employee benefits (e.g., pensions, health insurance, etc.) affect the daily management of all organizations. Managers who make decisions without appropriate consideration of risk management issues can jeopardize the long-term survival of their organizations. The course examines a common set of techniques which can be used by managers in dealing with these problems, including risk assumption, prevention, diversification, and transfer via insurance and non-insurance market mechanisms. In turn, students learn to recognize that the institutional structure of the organization itself influence its own risks and their corresponding treatments.

INSR 924. (crosslisted with INSR 262 and INSR 824) Social Insurance.
Prerequisite(s): Some economics and econometrics desirable.
        This course presents and evaluates economic rationales for social insurance programs in the developed and developing world.  We explore how social insurance programs are designed and implemented in theory and practice, and examine what their economic effects are on key players' behaviors.  Topics include systems protecting against unemployment, disability, poverty, old age, and medical care expenses.  We examine the relative roles of private versus governmentally-provided benefit programs, focusing on financing and benefit provision.  Special attention is devoted to recent and ongoing real-world experiments with privatization.