Description: Chapter 3 presents a very general overview of the data from public employee retirement systems in California, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, and Texaseach in respect to demographic and economic assumptions. From A Study of Public Employees Retirement Systems, M-RS96-1.

Description: The methods of pension funding are generally understood, but references in the actuarial literature are rather sparse. This paper attempt, in some measure, to get at least the fundamentals of pension funding into the actuarial literature. From Society of Actuaries 50th Anniversary Monograph, M-AV99-1.

Description: Paper examining the degree to which certain actuarial methods satisfy public pension plan funding objectives.

Description: Chapter 6 summarizes the findings for key actuarial assumptions in each of the following categories: active mortality, disablement rates, withdrawal rates, retirement rates, retiree mortality, disabled mortality, interest rates, salary scales, actuarial cost methods, ans asset valuation methods. From A Study of Public Employees Retirement Systems, M-RS96-1.

Description: Chapter 2 describes the general categories of results that the study gleaned from the vast amount of data gathered: active mortality rates, disablement rates, termination rates, retirement rates, retiree morality, disabled mortality, interest rates, and salary scales. From A Study of Public Employees Retirement Systems, M-RS96-1.

Description: Defined benefit DB pension plans continue to dominate the retirement landscape for the roughly 20 million state and local government workers in the United States. In most state and local plans, pension benefits are protected by constitutional, statutory, or common law guarantees. In many cases, these guarantees make the benefit promises to participants virtually free of risk. Finance theory is unambiguous that the discount rate used to value future pension obligations should reflect the riskiness of the liabilities.

Description: Chapter 5 reviews the investment plans of four Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, and California public employee systems concentrating on three main topics: general summary of fund and portfolio characteristics, comparisons of target asset allocations policies, and reviews of investment policies. From A Study of Public Employees Retirement Systems, M-RS96-1.

Description: This paper examines how the cash balance plan design is related to the normal cost and accrued liability in the various actuarial cost methods, as well as the interaction of the economic assumptions in the valuation. The analysis will show that the traditional cost methods may understate the actual liability. The paper also presents an alternative cost method, along with its advantages and disadvantages. From Cash Balance Symposium Monograph, M-RS02-3.

Description: Chapter 4 offers a summary of the assumptions and methods used in the various actuarial valuation reports that were collected, giving a general understanding for the continuum of actuarial bases. No attempt is made to draw any strong statistical conclusions. From A Study of Public Employees Retirement Systems, M-RS96-1.

Description: This paper presents a methodology that represents the common ground between the major camps in the debate over the defined benefits DB system.