Description: The purpose of this research is to analyze recent court cases that focused on excessive contributions to small defined benefit plans. The implications of the cases is important because it provides insight into appropriate paradigms for the funding of private retirement plans. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, Vol. 1 .

Description: In today's atmosphere, the high returns available on bonds have attracted much investor interest, and it is only natural that fixed income investors look for ways to assure the maintenance of high returns on their bond portfolios. This paper explains how bond immunization offers that potential.

Description: This study provides statistical indications of trends in mortality at ages 10 through 34 for both males and females in Canada. Causes of death, with emphasis on suicide and accidental death rates, are explored.

Description: One of the most important influences on the development of an insurance market and on the development of professions, such as the actuarial profession, is the nature of regulation. This paper looks at four main economic models of regulation: 1. Market socialism, 2. Freedom with publicity, 3. Public interest, and 4. Public choice theory. The role of profession and other sophisticated products of the market order are also analysed.

Description: This paper considers the development of the insurance and investment markets in the EC from an historical and legal point of view. The likely changes as a result of the Single European Act are also considered along with possible ways of ensuring the act is met and the role of the actuary in that process. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1991, Vol. 1.

Description: This paper explores and develops some initial ideas of roll-forward reserve funding of Social Security. It reports on the work of actuarial students and teachers for an 8-week study period coordinated with the National Science Foundation program of Research Experience for Undergraduate grants. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, VOL. 1.

Description: This paper investigates salary functions as they are used in the valuation of pension plans. Pension actuaries may find many of the ideas in this article useful. Moreover, the paper may be interesting to researchers in actuarial science. The main conclusion of this paper is that salary functions, as derived from the parametric models, yield gains and losses that can be quite small and, in some cases, less variable than non-parametric methods. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1998, Vol. 1.

Description: Continuing change pervades the actuarial world. Actuarial tools and techniques are constantly evolving, new financial products and services appear regularly, legislation and regulation rarely remain unchanged for long, consumers are becoming better informed and more sophisticated, the financial environment is becoming increasingly global, distinctions between types of financial institution are becoming more blurred, and the areas in which actuaries find applications for their skills become more varied. In this context, the most important attribute for actuaries is the capacity to adapt. This paper considers some implications for university actuarial programs of the need to develop adaptive actuaries. It discusses the results of a survey of the preferred learning styles of Macquarie University actuarial students, examines the newly introduced Australian actuarial subject called 'The Actuarial Control Cycle,' and looks at the use of portfolios of student work. It concludes that in order to develop adaptive actuaries for the 21st century, actuarial programs must broaden the range and type of teaching/learning activities and assessment methods provided for students.

Description: This paper examines the Federal Housing Administration's [FHA] historical termination data on individual single family mortgages. These FHA data can be used to help understand recent past experience as well as to forecast future experience.

Description: This paper expands the calculation of a group's credibility factor from a traditional univariate one-dimensional single layer model to: 1. a univariate one dimensional two layer model, 2. a multivariate one dimensional single layer model, and 3. a univariate two dimensional single layer models.