Description: This paper presents a new perspective on three basic financial quantities: assets, liabilities and surplus. The new perspective is developed through a re-examination of the fundamental concepts inherent in these quantities. This re-examination clarifies the difference between the concept and the various rules commonly used to establish their numerical value. With the benefit of this clarification, an alternate approach to the development of surplus is presented. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 3.

Description: This paper discusses contracts sold by states which promised to provide tuition in the future for a fixed price. Because these contracts provide a benefit whose dollar value is uncertain at the time of sale, these contracts contain significant risks to the states and create a challenge to the actuaries who opine on the adequacy of the trust funds to provide the benefits promised by these contracts. This article discusses some of the implications of the method used by the major states to project tuition inflation and explores other possible methods. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 3.

Description: This paper presents best upper and lower bounds on the expected value of a reinsurance payment under the terms of a contract written on a random loss with known moments. Bounds on the expected exercise value of a financial option are considered also because the mathematical model used for valuing options is similar to that used in reinsurance net premium calculations. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House ARCH 1990 Vol. 1.

Description: This is a summary of the progress of a Credit Risk Study sponsored by the Society of Actuaries analyzing the credit risk of private placement bonds and commercial mortgage loans. This study is a pilot effort undertaken to determine the feasibility of such a study on a regular basis.

Description: Traditionally, actuarial techniques are used to study mortality and morbidity experience. But an SOA study demonstrates that similar methods can be used to analyze the mortality and morbidity of assets i.e., credit risk events such as restructures, defaults, foreclosures, and bankruptcies. This is a Summary of the Final Report: 1986-1989 Credit Risk Event Loss Experience, Commercial Mortgage Loans and Private Placement Bonds. From ACTUARIAL RESEARCH CLEARING HOUSE, 1994 VOL. 1.

Description: Many seniors who own houses in the United States have most of their wealth in their houses. Home Equity Conversion Mortgages are designed to allow seniors to borrow money against their house. This paper describes a stochastic simulation approach used to estimate the amount of a level-payment annuity payable as long as the senior is alive and living in his/her home. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1990, VOL. 2.

Description: This paper discusses simple interest, amortization and simplicity. The author asserts that compound interest is an improvement upon simple interest that makes the calculation of interest simpler. Likewise, exponential amortization is an improvement upon linear amortization that makes the calculation of amortization simpler. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1990, VOL. 2.

Description: A presentation on the principle of equivalent utility from the 2001 ARCH. Contains both the static and dynamic model as well as examples with exponential utility.

Description: Interest rate modeling is discussed in this paper with special emphasis on the long and short rate model of Brennan and Schwartz. Comment is made on an unexpected aspect of the solution of the resulting partial differential equation. Also, an analysis is made of the predictive power of the term structure of interest rates. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House 1991 Vol. 1.

Description: This paper introduces the Bond Manager's Method for ALM which allows the impact of a change in interest rate levels on the present value of a stream of cash flows to be directly determined from the coupon rates and prices on benchmark bonds without the intermediate step of determining spot rates. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 3.