Pareto Package Vignette

Pareto distribution

Definition: Let $t>0$ and $\alpha>0$. The Pareto distribution $\text{Pareto}(t,\alpha)$ is defined by the distribution function \[ F_{t,\alpha}(x):=\begin{cases} 0 & \text{ for $x\le t$} \\ \displaystyle 1-\left(\frac{t}{x}\right)^{\alpha} & \text{ for $x>t$.} \end{cases} \] This version of the Pareto distribution is also known as Pareto type I, European Pareto or single-parameter Pareto.

Distribution function and density

The functions pPareto and dPareto provide the distribution function and the density function of the Pareto distribution:

library(Pareto)
x <- c(1:10) * 1000
pPareto(x, 1000, 2)

##  [1] 0.0000000 0.7500000 0.8888889 0.9375000 0.9600000 0.9722222 0.9795918
##  [8] 0.9843750 0.9876543 0.9900000

plot(pPareto(1:5000, 1000, 2), xlab = "x", ylab = "CDF(x)")

dPareto(x, 1000, 2)

##  [1] 0.000000e+00 2.500000e-04 7.407407e-05 3.125000e-05 1.600000e-05
##  [6] 9.259259e-06 5.830904e-06 3.906250e-06 2.743484e-06 2.000000e-06

plot(dPareto(1:5000, 1000, 2), xlab = "x", ylab = "PDF(x)")

The package also provides the quantile function:

qPareto(0:10 / 10, 1000, 2)

##  [1] 1000.000 1054.093 1118.034 1195.229 1290.994 1414.214 1581.139
##  [8] 1825.742 2236.068 3162.278      Inf

Simulation:

rPareto(20, 1000, 2)

##  [1] 1292.948 1478.997 1264.428 2213.742 3244.998 4321.080 2862.727
##  [8] 1069.437 2116.547 3158.694 1605.736 1221.685 1437.802 2633.073
## [15] 1813.905 1022.537 2928.294 1070.701 1056.264 2146.440

Layer mean:

Let $X\sim \text{Pareto}(t,\alpha)$ and $a, c\ge 0$. Then \[ E(\min[c,\max(X-a,0)]) = \int_a^{c+a}(1-F_{t,\alpha}(x))\, dx =: I_{t,\alpha}^{\text{$c$ xs $a$}} \] is the layer mean of $c$ xs $a$, i.e. the expected loss to the layer given a single loss $X$.

Example: $t=500$, $\alpha = 2$, Layer 4000 xs 1000

Pareto_Layer_Mean(4000, 1000, 2, t = 500)

## [1] 200

Layer variance:

Let $X\sim \text{Pareto}(t,\alpha)$ and $a, c\ge 0$. Then the variance of the layer loss $\min[c,\max(X-a,0)]$ can be calculated with the function Pareto_Layer_Var.

Example: $t=500$, $\alpha = 2$, Layer 4000 xs 1000

library(Pareto)
Pareto_Layer_Var(4000, 1000, 2, t = 500)

## [1] 364719

Why is the Pareto distribution so popular?

Lemma:

Let $X \sim \text{Pareto}(t,\alpha )$. Then $cX \sim \text{Pareto}(ct,\alpha )$ for all $c>0$.
Let $X \sim \text{Pareto}(t_{1} ,\alpha )$. For $t_2 > t_1$ we then have $X|(X>t_2 ) \sim \text{Pareto}(t_2 ,\alpha )$

Consequences:

The Pareto alpha is invariant wrt scaling (which implies that $\alpha$ does not depend on currencies and inflation)
For Pareto distributed data the Pareto alpha does not depend on the reporting threshold
For layers and thresholds above $t$ the ratio between expected layer losses and/or excess frequencies depends only on $\alpha$ (and not on $t$)

Pareto extrapolation

Consider two layers $c_i$ xs $a_i$ and a $\text{Pareto}(t,\alpha)$ distributed severity with sufficiently small $t$. What is the expected loss of $c_2$ xs $a_2$ given the expected loss of $c_1$ xs $a_1$?

Example: Assume $\alpha = 2$ and the expected loss of 4000 xs 1000 is 500. Calculate the expected loss of the layer 5000 xs 5000.

Pareto_Extrapolation(4000, 1000, 5000, 5000, 2) * 500

## [1] 62.5

Pareto_Extrapolation(4000, 1000, 5000, 5000, 2, ExpLoss_1 = 500)

## [1] 62.5

Pareto alpha between two layers:

Given the expected losses of two layers, there is typically a unique Pareto alpha $\alpha$ which is consistent with the ratio of the expected layer losses.

Example: Expected loss of 4000 xs 1000 is 500. Expected loss of 5000 xs 5000 is 62.5. Alpha between the two layers:

Pareto_Find_Alpha_btw_Layers(4000, 1000, 500, 5000, 5000, 62.5)

## [1] 2

Check: see previous example

Pareto alpha between a frequency and layer:

Given the expected excess frequency at a threshold and the expected loss of a layer, then there is typically a unique Pareto alpha $\alpha$ which is consistent with this data.

Example: Expected frequency in excess of 500 is 2.5. Expected loss of 4000 xs 1000 is 500. Alpha between the frequency and the layer:

Pareto_Find_Alpha_btw_FQ_Layer(500, 2.5, 4000, 1000, 500)

## [1] 2

Check:

Pareto_Layer_Mean(4000, 1000, 2, t = 500) * 2.5

## [1] 500

Matching the expected losses of two layers:

Given the expected losses of two layers, we can use these techniques to obtain a Poisson-Pareto model which matches the expected loss of both layers.

Example: Expected loss of 30 xs 10 is 26.66 (Burning Cost). Expected loss of 60 xs 40 is 15.95 (Exposure model).

Pareto_Find_Alpha_btw_Layers(30, 10, 26.66, 60, 40, 15.95)

## [1] 1.086263

Frequency @ 10:

26.66 / Pareto_Layer_Mean(30, 10, 1.086263)

## [1] 2.040392

A collective model $\sum_{n=1}^NX_n$ with $X_N\sim \text{Pareto}(10, 1.09)$ and $N\sim \text{Poisson}(2.04)$ matches both expected layer losses.

Frequency extrapolation and alpha between frequencies:

Given the frequency $f_1$ in excess of $t_1$ the frequency $f_2$ in excess of $t_2$ can directly be calculated as follows: \[ f_2 = f_1 \cdot \left(\frac{t_1}{t_2}\right)^\alpha \] Vice versa, we can calculate the Pareto alpha, if the two excess frequencies $f_1$ and $f_2$ are given: \[ \alpha = \frac{\log(f_2/f_1)}{\log(t_1/t_2)}. \]

Example:

Expected frequency excess 1000 is 2. What is the expected frequency excess 4000 if we have a Pareto alpha of 2.5?

t_1 <- 1000
f_1 <- 2
t_2 <- 4000
(f_2 <- f_1 * (t_1 / t_2)^2.5)

## [1] 0.0625

Vice versa:

Pareto_Find_Alpha_btw_FQs(t_1, f_1, t_2, f_2)

## [1] 2.5

Maximum likelihood estimation of the parameter alpha

For $i=1,\dots,n$ let $X_i\sim \text{Pareto}(t_i,\alpha)$ be Pareto distributed observations. Then we have the ML estimator \[ \hat{\alpha}^{ML}=\frac{n}{\sum_{i=1}^n\log(X_i/t_i)}. \] Example:

Pareto distributed losses with a reporting threshold of $t=100$ and $\alpha = 2$:

losses <- rPareto(1000, t = 100, alpha = 2)
Pareto_ML_Estimator_Alpha(losses, t = 100)

## [1] 2.048619

Truncation

Let $X\sim \text{Pareto}(t,\alpha)$ and $T>t$. Then $X|(X>T)$ has a truncated Pareto distribution. The Pareto functions mentioned above are also available for the truncated Pareto distribution.

Piecewise Pareto distribution

Definition: Let $\mathbf{t}:=(t_1,\dots,t_n)$ be a vector of thresholds with $0<t_1<\dots<t_n<t_{n+1}:=+\infty$ and let $\boldsymbol\alpha:=(\alpha_1,\dots,\alpha_n)$ be a vector of Pareto alphas with $\alpha_i\ge 0$ and $\alpha_n>0$. The piecewise Pareto distribution} $\text{PPareto}(\mathbf{t},\boldsymbol\alpha)$ is defined by the distribution function \[ F_{\mathbf{t},\boldsymbol\alpha}(x):=\begin{cases} 0 & \text{ for $x<t_1$} \\ \displaystyle 1-\left(\frac{t_{k}}{x}\right)^{\alpha_k}\prod_{i=1}^{k-1}\left(\frac{t_i}{t_{i+1}}\right)^{\alpha_i} & \text{ for $x\in [t_k,t_{k+1}).$} \end{cases} \]

The family of piecewise Pareto distributions is very flexible:

Proposition: The set of Piecewise Pareto distributions is dense in the space of all positive-valued distributions (with respect to the Lévy metric).

This means that we can approximate any positive valued distribution as good as we want with piecewise Pareto. A very good approximation typically comes at the cost of many Pareto pieces. Piecewise Pareto is often a good alternative to a discrete distribution, since it is much better to handle!

The Pareto package also provides functions for the piecewise Pareto distribution. For instance:

Distribution function

x <- c(1:10) * 1000
t <- c(1000, 2000, 3000, 4000)
alpha <- c(2, 1, 3, 20)
pPiecewisePareto(x, t, alpha)

##  [1] 0.0000000 0.7500000 0.8333333 0.9296875 0.9991894 0.9999789 0.9999990
##  [8] 0.9999999 1.0000000 1.0000000

plot(pPiecewisePareto(1:5000, t, alpha), xlab = "x", ylab = "CDF(x)")

Density

dPiecewisePareto(x, t, alpha)

##  [1] 0.000000e+00 1.250000e-04 1.666667e-04 3.515625e-04 3.242592e-06
##  [6] 7.048328e-08 2.768239e-09 1.676381e-10 1.413089e-11 1.546188e-12

plot(dPiecewisePareto(1:5000, t, alpha), xlab = "x", ylab = "PDF(x)")

Simulation

rPiecewisePareto(20, t, alpha)

##  [1] 1300.638 3448.499 1066.498 1057.231 1011.667 1017.480 1611.076
##  [8] 1043.258 1830.830 2851.443 2407.847 1088.753 1080.614 1168.941
## [15] 1225.730 1891.538 1133.505 1782.926 1551.437 1082.830

Layer mean

PiecewisePareto_Layer_Mean(4000, 1000, t, alpha)

## [1] 826.6969

Layer variance

PiecewisePareto_Layer_Var(4000, 1000, t, alpha)

## [1] 922221.2

Maximum likelihood estimation of the alphas

Let $\mathbf{t}:=(t_1,\dots,t_n)$ be a vector of thresholds and let $\boldsymbol\alpha:=(\alpha_1,\dots,\alpha_n)$ be a vector of Pareto alphas. For $i=1,\dots,n$ let $X_i\sim \text{PPareto}(\mathbf{t},\boldsymbol\alpha)$. If the vector $\mathbf{t}$ is known, then the parameter vector $\boldsymbol\alpha$ can be estimated with maximum likelihood.

Example:

Piecewise Pareto distributed losses with $\mathbf{t}:=(100,\,200,\, 300)$ and $\boldsymbol\alpha:=(1,\, 2,\, 3)$:

losses <- rPiecewisePareto(10000, t = c(100,200,300), alpha = c(1,2,3))
PiecewisePareto_ML_Estimator_Alpha(losses, c(100,200,300))

## [1] 0.9910559 1.9980430 2.9472604

Truncation

The package also provides truncated versions of the piecewise Pareto distribution. There are two options available:

truncation_type = 'lp': Below the largest threshold $t_n$, the distribution function equals the distribution of the piecewise Pareto distribution without truncation. The last Pareto piece, however, is truncated at truncation
truncation_type = 'wd': The whole piecewise Pareto distribution is truncated at `truncation’

Matching a tower of layer losses

The Pareto distribution can be used to build a collective model which matches the expected loss of two layers. We can use piecewise Pareto if we want to match the expected loss of more than two layers.

Consider a sequence of attachment points $0 < a_1 <\dots < a_n<a_{n+1}:=+\infty$. Let $c_i:=a_{i+1}-a_i$ and let $e_i$ be the expected loss of the layer $c_i$ xs $a_i$. Moreover, let $f_1$ be the expected frequency in excess of $a_1$.

The following matching algorithm uses one Pareto piece per layer and is straight forward:

Calculate the Pareto alpha $\alpha_1$ between the excess frequency $f_1$ and the layer $c_1$ xs $a_1$
Calculate the frequency $f_2$ in excess of $a_2$: $f_2:=(a_1/a_2)^{\alpha_1}\cdot f_1$
Calculate the Pareto alpha $\alpha_2$ between the excess frequency $f_2$ and the layer $c_2$ xs $a_2$
Calculate the frequency $f_3$ in excess of $a_3$: $f_3:=(a_2/a_3)^{\alpha_2}\cdot f_3$
$\dots$
Use a collective model $\sum_{n=1}^NX_n$ with $E(N)=f_1$ and $X_n\sim\text{PPareto}(\mathbf{t},\boldsymbol\alpha)$.

This approach always works for three layers, but it often does not work if we have three or more layers. For instance, Riegel (2018) shows that it does not work for the following example:

$i$	Cover $c_i$	Att. Pt. $a_i$	Exp. Loss $e_i$	Rate on Line $e_i/c_i$
1	500	1000	100	0.20
2	500	1500	90	0.18
3	500	2000	50	0.10
4	500	2500	40	0.08

The Pareto package provides a more complex matching approach that uses two Pareto pieces per layer. Riegel (2018) shows that this approach works for an arbitrary number of layers with consistent expected losses.

Example:

attachment_points <- c(1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000)
exp_losses <- c(100, 90, 50, 40, 100)
fit <- PiecewisePareto_Match_Layer_Losses(attachment_points, exp_losses)
fit

## 
## Panjer & Piecewise Pareto model
## 
## Collective model with a Poisson distribution for the claim count and a Piecewise Pareto distributed severity.
## 
## Poisson Distribution:
## Expected Frequency:   0.2136971
## 
## Piecewise Pareto Distribution:
## Thresholds:         1000   1500   1932.059   2000   2147.531   2500   2847.756   3000
## Alphas:              0.3091209   0.1753613   9.685189   3.538534   0.817398   0.7663698   5.086828   2.845488
## The distribution is not truncated.
## 
## Status:               0
## Comments:             OK

The function PiecewisePareto_Match_Layer_Losses returns a PPP_Model object (PPP stands for Panjer & Piecewise Pareto) which contains the information required to specify a collective model with a Panjer distributed claim count and a piecewise Pareto distributed severity. The results can be checked using the attributes FQ, t and alpha of the object:

c(PiecewisePareto_Layer_Mean(500, 1000, fit$t, fit$alpha) * fit$FQ,
  PiecewisePareto_Layer_Mean(500, 1500, fit$t, fit$alpha) * fit$FQ,
  PiecewisePareto_Layer_Mean(500, 2000, fit$t, fit$alpha) * fit$FQ,
  PiecewisePareto_Layer_Mean(500, 2500, fit$t, fit$alpha) * fit$FQ,
  PiecewisePareto_Layer_Mean(Inf, 3000, fit$t, fit$alpha) * fit$FQ)

## [1] 100  90  50  40 100

There are, however, functions which can directly use PPP_Models:

covers <- c(diff(attachment_points), Inf)
PPP_Model_Exp_Layer_Loss(covers, attachment_points, fit)

## [1] 100  90  50  40 100

PPP_Models (Panjer & Piecewise Pareto Models)

A PPP_Model object contains the information required to specify a collective model with a Panjer distributed claim count and a piecewise Pareto distributed severity.

Claim count distribution: The Panjer class contains the binomial distribution, the Poisson distribution and the negative binomial distribution. The distribution of the claim count $N$ is specified by the expected frequency $E(N)$ (attribute FQ of the object) and the dispersion $D(N):=Var(N)/E(N)$ (attribute dispersion of the object). We have the following cases:

dispersion < 1: binomial distribution
dispersion = 1: Poisson distribution
dispersion > 1: negative binomial distribution.

Severity distribution: The piecewise Pareto distribution is specified by the vectors t, alpha, truncation and truncation_type.

The function PiecewisePareto_Match_Layer_Losses returns PPP_Model object. Such an object can also be directly created using the constructor function:

PPPM <- PPP_Model(FQ = 2, t = c(1000, 2000), alpha = c(1, 2), 
                  truncation = 10000, truncation_type = "wd", dispersion = 1.5)
PPPM

## 
## Panjer & Piecewise Pareto model
## 
## Collective model with a Negative Binomial distribution for the claim count and a Piecewise Pareto distributed severity.
## 
## Negative Binomial Distribution:
## Expected Frequency:   2
## Dispersion:           1.5 (i.e. contagion = 0.25)
## 
## Piecewise Pareto Distribution:
## Thresholds:         1000   2000
## Alphas:              1   2
## Truncation:           10000
## Truncation Type:      'wd'
## 
## Status:               0
## Comments:             OK

Expected Loss, Standard Deviation and Variance for Reinsurance Layers

A PPP_Model can directly be used to calculate the expected loss, the standard deviation or the variance of a reinsurance layer: function:

PPPM <- PPP_Model(FQ = 2, t = c(1000, 2000), alpha = c(1, 2), 
                  truncation = 10000, truncation_type = "wd", dispersion = 1.5)
PPP_Model_Exp_Layer_Loss(4000, 1000, PPPM)

## [1] 2475.811

PPP_Model_Layer_Sd(4000, 1000, PPPM)

## [1] 2676.332

PPP_Model_Layer_Var(4000, 1000, PPPM)

## [1] 7162754

Expected Excess Frequency

A PPP_Model can directly be used to calculate the expected frequency in excess of a threshold:

PPPM <- PPP_Model(FQ = 2, t = c(1000, 2000), alpha = c(1, 2), 
                  truncation = 10000, truncation_type = "wd", dispersion = 1.5)
thresholds <- c(0, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000, Inf)
PPP_Model_Excess_Frequency(thresholds, PPPM)

## [1] 2.0000000 2.0000000 0.9795918 0.1224490 0.0000000 0.0000000

Simulation of Losses

A PPP_Model can directly be used to simulate losses with the corresponding collective model:

PPPM <- PPP_Model(FQ = 2, t = c(1000, 2000), alpha = c(1, 2), 
                  truncation = 10000, truncation_type = "wd", dispersion = 1.5)
PPP_Model_Simulate(10, PPPM)

##           [,1]     [,2]     [,3]     [,4]     [,5]     [,6]     [,7]
##  [1,] 2055.049      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN
##  [2,] 2159.166      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN
##  [3,] 2267.482 1134.851 4203.574      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN
##  [4,] 2152.046      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN
##  [5,] 1445.720 2975.461      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN
##  [6,]      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN
##  [7,] 2103.711 2066.431      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN
##  [8,] 1037.511 1112.597 1062.951 2841.643 2057.994 1213.382 1430.868
##  [9,] 2163.264      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN
## [10,] 2432.638      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN      NaN

The function PPP_Model_Simulate returns a matrix where each row contains the losses from one simulation.

Note that for a given expected frequency FQ not every dispersion dispersion < 1 is possible for the binomial distribution. In this case a binomial distribution with the smallest dispersion larger than or equal to dispersion is used for the simulation.

Pareto Package Vignette

Ulrich Riegel

2020-05-02

Introduction

Pareto distribution

Distribution function and density

Simulation:

Layer mean:

Layer variance:

Why is the Pareto distribution so popular?

Pareto extrapolation

Pareto alpha between two layers:

Pareto alpha between a frequency and layer:

Matching the expected losses of two layers:

Frequency extrapolation and alpha between frequencies:

Maximum likelihood estimation of the parameter alpha

Truncation

Piecewise Pareto distribution

Distribution function

Density

Simulation

Layer mean

Layer variance

Maximum likelihood estimation of the alphas

Truncation

Matching a tower of layer losses

PPP_Models (Panjer & Piecewise Pareto Models)

Expected Loss, Standard Deviation and Variance for Reinsurance Layers

Expected Excess Frequency

Simulation of Losses

References