Description: The current financial crisis underscores the need for companies to take a sobering look at their approach to risk management. Among the many lessons to be learned, one is immediately clear: The subprime debacle represents a failure in risk management, rather than a failure of risk management.

Description: The Society of Actuaries Research Institute’s Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program is pleased to release a collection of essays addressing the impact of inflation on retirement and retirement-related issues.

Description: The focus of the essay is how to use regulatory requirements like ORSA to add competitive advantage. This is accomplished by leveraging the work done for regulators in a way that helps a firm make better decisions. Looking for concentrations of risk, model shortcomings and changing correlations are considered. Stress testing, counterparty risk and changing risk appetites are all topics that help the risk manager better understand the risks accepted. Finally, the paper suggests that the risk officer job should be split into a component that focuses on the process and risk mitigation techniques. The Chief Risk and Return Officer would reside in the strategic planning area and participate in strategic decision making for the firm. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ (SOA) Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program in collaboration with the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA) and the Organization of Latino Actuaries (OLA) are pleased to publish this essay collection on Aging and Retirement Issues in People of Different Races and Ethnicities. This effort explores how differences in wealth and retirement outcomes are experienced by people of different races and ethnicities and promotes a better understanding of the underlying issues surrounding the differences.

Description: Some of the uncertainties related to catastrophe models are explored, leading to the suggestion that the actuary is well suited to understand and use these in the context of an ORSA exercise. Part of the essay collection "Risk Metrics for Decision Making and ORSA"

Description: The world of the local S&Ls, the partner-owned investment bank and Bretton Woods isn’t coming back. So what does that leave us to do next? Part of me is persuaded by the second law of thermodynamics, which says that existence gets progressively more and more disordered with the passage of time, since any work done to address the current crisis expends more energy and causes more disorder than it fixes.

Description: In order for actuaries to play a valuable role in the realm of enterprise risk management ERM, they must provide value-added advice and quantitative analyses. In this paper, the authors use stochastic simulation technology to present a risk metric for defined benefit pension plans that provides improved measures of the plan’s solvency and provides a tool for pension plan managers to determine the value of risk mitigation activities.

Description: This paper considers the problem of actuaries acting as advisers to individuals. This activity is covered by regulations, discussed in the paper, that currently recognize other professions but not actuaries. The paper recommends that actuarial organizations lobby the relevant legislative and regulatory bodies to provide actuaries pursuing an investment-focused career path with the same exemption status as other professionals.

Description: This article presents a hypothesis that the market cycles are primarily created by human actions, behavior and assumptions rather than by random variables. An analysis of main financial events over the last decade reveals that: a Every one of these events has had a human touch b The current financial crisis is an aftermath of the excessive economic boom during this period and c A new economy must emerge from human ingenuity and innovation.

Description: When regulators examine financial institutions, one of the most important areas on which they focus is capital requirements. This essay argues that we can’t push for neither too high nor too low default probabilities. Regulate too high and you introduce rigidity to the system: you choke the economy. Regulate too low and you introduce softness in your foundations: they cannot for long sustain the economy. Therefore, regulation should be set to provide a 'window for business'.