Description: These are abstracts of the following papers: 1. 'DISCONTINUITY AT THE BOUNDARY' by Beda Chan. 2. 'ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BALDUCCI AND UDD.' by Murray Silver. 3. 'PROBLEMS IN AND A SYLLABUS FOR DEMOGRAPHY' by John A. Beckman. 4. 'A MATHEMATICAL APPROACH TO YIELDS UNDER VARYING INVESTMENT CONDITIONS' by A. Spedding. 5. 'COUNTERPART EXPOSURE FORMULAS UNDER THE BALDUCCI AND UNIFORM DEATHS ASSUMPTIONS' by H. J. Boom. 6. 'DUALITY BETWEEN UNIFORM DEATHS AND BALDUCCI ASSUMPTIONS' by Elias S. W. Shiu. 7. 'RECENTLY PUBLISHED U.K. MORTALITY TABLES, METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION, AND POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS THEREFROM' by J. J. McCutcheon. From ACTUARIAL RESEARCH CLEARING HOUSE, 1980 VOL. 2.

Description: This paper argues that the self-financing axiom with mild assumptions on the conditional expected returns yields a market with an eventual arbitrage. This is accomplished by minimizing the conditional variance of a trade when the conditional expectation is a fixed constant. Examples with common processes shows that most models yield an eventual arbitrage. As a final application, a cost model is applied to prices of stripped coupon and principal payments on U.S. government bonds, where rates of return are estimated and lower bounds on market costs given.

Description: This paper presents a model is which can be used for certain annuities when interest rates and future lifetimes are random. These can be used in determining contingency reserves for possible adverse interest and mortality experience for collections of life annuity contracts. Certain boundary crossing probabilities for the stochastic process component of the model are obtained. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1991, VOL. 1.

Description: Easy access computing power is harnessed to approximate ruin probabilities. The dynamics of the traditional insurance model are stated in the form of period to period constraints. This allows the development of a life-table with the survival probabilities for a given set of parameters. Given the spreadsheet approach of the model, sensitivity analysis to study the impact of different parameter values and loss variable distributions can be easily implemented.

Description: This paper consists of two parts. The first concerns the financing of public systems, the second is a challenging introduction to variances encountered in life insurance and life annuity theory. The first part emerges from work by some actuarial students and faculty at the University of Michigan during the past five years. The second part was stimulated by some developments in the preparation of the second edition of Actuarial Mathematics.

Description: This article investigates the properties of the Gompertz distribution function. Explicit formulas for continuous life insurances and annuities are given in terms of the left-truncated gamma function. Moreover, approximations for the mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis of the Gompertz distribution are also given. Finally, the article shows that using a Gompertz assumption at fractional ages produces better a approximation than the usual UDD assumption.

Description: Provides white vs. black mortality rates based upon Social Security data for years 1984 - 1988, and separate tables based upon data from 'Health United States' for years 1983 - 1987 and data from 'Vital Statistics of the United States' for years 1983 - 1987.

Description: This paper attempts to quantify the benefits to the purchaser of a non-qualified variable annuity as compared to an investment in a mutual fund. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1991, VOL. 3.

Description: The standard deviation of the present value of benefits of portfolios of identical insurance contracts are examined when both the mortality and the force of interest are stochastic. Several models for the force of interest are presented. The impact of the different stochastic models for the force of interest and of different parameters on the mortality risk and the interest risk is investigated. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, VOL. 1.

Description: Describes purpose of ARCH and editorial policy.