Description: The current financial model put forth as the market value of public sector pension benefit liabilities is simply the expected cash flows of the accumulated benefit obligation, as defined for current private sector financial reporting, discounted using a risk-free yield curve. This model is in serious need of an overhaul. This monograph addresses this issue.

Description: A common approach to estimating the total amount of savings required to fund retirement is to first apply a generic “replacement rate” to pre-retirement income, such as 80%, to get the desired retirement income need. That need is then assumed to increase annually at the rate of inflation for the duration of retirement, which is generally assumed to be some fixed period, such as 30 years. Using government data along with a fairly simple market and mortality model, we explore these assumptions to more accurately estimate the true cost of retirement

Description: A discussion of the various Pension Plan Asset Valuation Methods. FromThe Pension Forum, August 2001, Volume 13, Issue No. 1.

Description: Capital Market Assumptions—The Past Performance Future Returns Debate by Jane Arnold and Jennifer Donnelly from Pension Section News, November 1998, Issue No. 38.

Description: This article describes a simplified problem in pension plan financing and presents two questions about how it can be modeled. Answers to these questions will be discussed and their implications for traditional actuarial models will be presented in Part 2 of the article in the following issue of the newsletter.

Description: Part 2 of an article which presents simplified problem and and presented alternate models. Answers are presented in this article. The author's final question is: If traditional actuarial models stumble over these issues, can we get it right for real world funding pension plans and funding practices?

Description: In the U.S. in the late 1980’s, the Internal Revenue Service was taking steps to try to institute explicit boundaries for the actuarial assumptions being used in 'funding' valuations to determine the appropriate contribution levels for small pension plans. This article was written in the context of that environment, to defend the rights of actuaries to their professional judgement. The courts eventually supported this perspective.

Description: 1993 SOA Spring Meeting, San Diego. This session discussed the proposed standards for determining the economic assumptions for the purposes of measuring pension obligations. The actuary's determination of the interest rate assumption was the primary focus of the discussion.

Description: This presentation was made at the 1975 Spring Cincinnati Joint Meeting of the Conference of Actuaries in Public Practice and Society of Actuaries. It discussed the following: how to choose the best pension assumptions and methods, how to arrive at interest assumptions, and the advantages of cost methods that reflect assumptions about new entrants and other changes in the group. 1975 Record Vol. 1, No. 3

Description: This 1978 session focused on valuation techniques for pension plans. Topics covered: 1. Asset Valuation Methods 2. Use of projections and forecasts 3. Has application of forecasts allowed the actuary to determine short range best estimate of future costs different from traditional methods? 4. Treatment of salary scales, turnover assumptions, retirement decrements