Description: The authors of the 2nd edition of the 'Actuarial Mathematics' textbook discuss the changes in the new edition. From the 1997 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 23, No. 3.

Description: These notes are a follow-up to the paper 'Introduction to the Dynamics of Pension Funding' by the same authors and published in Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1976, Vol. 28. The purpose of that paper was to provide an introduction to mathematical principles applicable to pension funding under dynamic conditions of population growth, inflation, and automatic adjustment of benefits. The first note discusses a general contribution formula and a number of special cases and modifications. The second note concerns aggregate cost funding when the actuary uses assumptions about cost factors which differ consistently from cost experience. The final note concerns the variation of the annuity unit under a variable annuity program patterned after the plan employed by the College Retirement Equities Fund [CREF]. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1981, Vol. 1.

Description: Actuarial literature in the twenty-five years includes discussions of a well known inequality. Among the recent papers on various aspects of this classic result are those by Berin 1970, Olson 1975 and Sarason 1960. A standard method for achieving this inequality uses Jensen's inequality. This is the method used by Bowers, et al 1983. We will also employ this method in an attempt to learn about it.

Description: This article poses the question, why doesn't the teaching of life contingencies start with the premise that the rate of investment income is a random process in a similar manner to the random nature of the time until death? The article suggests some methods for doing so.

Description: This article promotes the concept of long range planning for life insurance companies and notes that actuaries are well equiped for this activity.

Description: This session from the 1984 SOA Toronto Meeting discusses a nontechnical introduction to Applied Statistics and Operations Research, practical applications and examples for financial reporting and asset management and an overview of the potential use in actuarial applications of these management tools. From Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 10, No. 4B

Description: In this paper two theorems concerning the optimality of the perfect-fit and perfect-smoothness graduations are proved. Two examples are presented and some difficulties with regard to computational feasibility are reviewed. A discussion of the paper follows. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1978, Vol. 30.

Description: A presentation of a mathematics/statistics based approach for determining credibility factors for possible use in group health insurance premium rate setting and experience refund setting. Includes supporting mathematical proofs of approach. Followed by discussions submitted by several people

Description: This is a summary of topics discussed at the 1996 Bowles Symposium: “The Old Age Crisis: Actuarial Opportunities,” September 26-27, 1996, at Georgia State University, Atlanta.

Description: Panelists were members of the Actuary of the Future/Future of the Actuary Task Force of the Society of Actuaries [SOA]. They discussed the topics in their report to the SOA Board of Governors that related to a description of the current profession, the demand for actuaries in the 21st Century, what actuaries will be doing in the 21st Century, and implications for the selection, education, and training of actuaries. From the 1988 Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 14, No. 3.