The fourth talk within Seminar series in Statistics and Data Science of this semester, will take place at Erling Svedrups plass (Niels Henrik Abel Hus, 8th floor), 19.10.2021, 14:15. (NOTE, SECOND DAY IN A ROW!)

The talk will be given by Erik Helmer Bølviken, a Professor Emeritus at the Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo.  

Access to the seminar area physically at this point is not planned to be restricted. Yet, it will be possible to follow the talk on Zoom, using this link:
https://uio.zoom.us/j/64393710136?pwd=YzV4aWs3WnZ2NDZlUkhuSy9MOW5hZz09

Title:
Fitting distributions when the parameters are unimportant: an actuarial viewpoint

Abstract:
The talk is elementary and discusses empirical modelling of single variables with insurance losses as example. There are in such cases little or no theory to go on, and the amount of data is many situation quite scarce. Why do we so often limit ourselves to fit two-parameter families? It will be suggested that it may be a good idea to work with more flexible models with three or four parameters and that this may provide a nice framework for automating the entire procedure for the computer to work alone. Sure, with little data the parameters may be unstably estimated, but that may not apply equally to the distributions they define. Many-parameter families suitable for insurance losses will be reviewed with some simple asymptotics in an example allowing this and with Monte Carlo to throw light on the issue in other cases.

Best regards,
Sven Ove Samuelsen & Aliaksandr Hubin