MOIVRE, Abraham de.

£5,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Annuities upon Lives: or, the Valuation of Annuities upon any Number of Lives; as also, of Reversions. First edition of a founding work of actuarial science, de Moivre's influential study of annuities based upon the mortality statistics gathered in the 1690s by Edmund Halley.De Moivre was perhaps the first to develop probability theory extensively and the first to use probability theory to write a comprehensive work on life contingencies. In Annuities upon Lives de Moivre formulated that among a body of persons over a certain age the successive annual decreases by death are nearly equal. He applied the theory of probability to the systematic investigation of problems concerning annuities upon lives."De Moivre's contribution to annuities lies not in his evaluation of the demographic facts then known, but on his derivation of formulas for annuities based on a postulated law of mortality and constant rates on money. Here one finds the treatment of joint annuities on several lives, the inheritance of annuities, problems about the fair division of the costs of a tontine, and other contracts in which both age and interest on capital are relevant. This mathematics became a standard part of all subsequent commercial applications in England" (Ian Hacking in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography).The work is bound with five others:i) YORKE, Charles. Some considerations on the law of forfeiture, for high treason... The third edition, further corrected and enlarged. London: J. and J. Ri

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