Edward W. Frees

Overview

Edward W. Frees is an FSA, PhD and the Assurant Health Insurance Professor of Actuarial Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Business. He is known for applying multivariate time series and regression methods to actuarial problems, including stochastic forecasting of Social Security economic assumptions and longitudinal data analysis in insurance contexts.

Key Contributions

• Lead author of Frees et al. (1997), fitting multivariate ARMA-GARCH models to the four OASDI economic assumptions (inflation, investment returns, wages, unemployment) and demonstrating that the SSA's official scenario range captures only ~50% of historical forecast uncertainty.
• Frees (1990): stochastic model of life contingencies using modern probability theory.
• Frees (1996): graduate-level regression textbook used in actuarial education (Regression Models for Business and Economic Forecasting).
• Lai and Frees (1995): multivariate time series analysis applied to Social Security projections.

Related

• Marjorie A. Rosenberg
• Virginia R. Young
• Social Security Administration
• Long-Term Actuarial Balance
• Frees et al 1997 — Forecasting Social Security Actuarial Assumptions