Description: The paper demonstrates that the most popular rationalization for evolving glide paths is flawed and should be discarded. The paper also demonstrates that glide paths should generally evolve for investors that endeavor to optimize outcomes and reevaluate their portfolios regularly.

Description: RL Bond Market Watch, July 2013 Resource for Pension Section members

Description: This is a panel discussion on current developments in pensions examining the future of plan termination insurance, government policy and recent trends in social investing. From Record Of Society Of Actuaries Volume 8, Number 4

Description: The RL Asset Liability Watch for December 2012. A resource for Pension Section members.

Description: Many retirement actuaries have experience developing, implementing, and monitoring Liability Driven Investing (LDI) strategies for plan sponsors. These strategies typically involve modifying a plan’s investment strategy to remove a significant portion of the investment and interest rate risk now or at some point in the future when specific triggers are met. The tactics often involve the use of fixed income assets to cash flow and/or duration match the liabilities. In the spirit of helping actuaries expand their roles in an evolving defined contribution world, this article explores the application of LDI and derisking strategies within defined contribution and individual retirement accounts. The economic theory behind this approach is called the lifecycle hypothesis, or lifecycle finance. The benefits of the lifecycle finance method are that it provides a safe approach to save for retirement and a secure source of floor income during retirement. Similar to pension plans, each individual has his or her own idiosyncratic needs, wants, and risks that should be considered. Actuaries are uniquely situated to help defined contribution plan sponsors, individuals, and even themselves implement the lifecycle finance approach by developing and distributing tools and methods that focus on income (rather than wealth), LDI strategies, and personalization.

Description: Proposes a benchmark consisting of TIPs and deferred income annuities for retirement asset allocation decisions.

Description: This article discusses index separate accounts and their use by insurance companies for group pension clients, including product design and regulatory developments.

Description: Diminished equity returns and historically low levels of interest rates are compelling plan sponsors to look at new ways of fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. In response, new frontiers in asset/liability management have arisen. This article will discuss strategies aimed at reducing the volatility of pension expense and decreasing the likelihood of significant funding deficits, all without increasing pension contribution rates. From Risks and Rewards Newsletter, August 2005, Issue No. 47.

Description: This paper examines the so called 1/n investment puzzle which has been observed in defined contribution plans whereby some participants divide their contributions equally among the available asset classes. It has been argued that this is a very naive strategy since it contradicts the fundamental tenets of modern portfolio theory. We use simple arguments to show that this behavior is perhaps less naive than it at first appears. We show that when we account for estimation error the 1/n rule has some advantages in terms of robustness and we demonstrate this with numerical experiments. From The Actuarial Research Council, Volume 38, No. 1.

Description: This article discusses that over the past five years, an increasing number of actuaries have become concerned with the asset side of the balance sheet.