Description: This article aimed to make Liability Driven Investing LDI more accessible by providing a simple definition and by showing how plans of different sizes and circumstances may adopt an appropriate LDI approach.

Description: This is a summary of a new research paper entitled: “Determining Discount Rates Required to Fund Defined Benefit Plans” by John Turner and three other economists, which describes a new way to look at pension funding for ongoing plans that is a variant of using expected returns (currently used in public plans) that takes into account the risk that contributions will be needed in the future for this year’s benefit accruals.

Description: This is a discussion of the title paper by Raymond F. Houseman, which provides some practical aspects of various funding methods. The paper is critiqued, and some alternative methods are discussed.

Description: This is a discussion of 'The Generalized Family of Aggregate Actuarial Cost Methods for Pension Funding' by John R. Taylor. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1967, Vol. 19, Pt. 1, No. 54.

Description: A frustrating aspect of pension funding rules for U.S. plan sponsors is that contribution requirements are adversely correlated with business cycles. For example, not only did plan sponsors get hit with large contribution requirements in the perfect storm of the early 2000s, but many sponsors were prohibited from contributing in the late 1990s boom due to full funding limitations. This paper proposes that plan sponsors be allowed to contribute the normal cost as a deductible contribution each year. In hindsight, this would have allowed plan sponsors to pay for benefits as they accrued in the late 1990s and ultimately mitigated some of the crash of the early 2000s. The authors aim to demonstrate that a contribution policy allowing contributions to be at least equal to the normal cost will result in less volatility of contributions and improve the funded status over time.

Description: This discussion is about interests assumptions that are being used for cost estimates and valuation for trusteed retirement plans and deposit administration plans. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries Vol. 13 pt 2

Description: This study examines reductions in retirement benefits from the decline in defined benefit plans and increases in defined contribution plans during the past 20 years and what effect this has on workforce management. In particular how this change is affecting older workers’ decisions to retire and what effect this could have on companies. An underlying assumption implicit in evaluating the benefit of retirement of older workers is that productivity declines in old age while pay does not, leading to a pay productivity gap that could have an adverse effect on the employer from delayed retirement. The validity of this assumption was also examined.

Description: Article E&E Development by Lauer in The Actuary, September 1978, Volume 12, Number 7

Description: This is the abstract for a paper that seeks to construct a new system for pension funding that balances the needs of all the pension stakeholders. The paper presents a system that supports plan sponsors’ needs for predictable and relatively smooth contribution streams with the needs of the PBGC, pensioners, and taxpayers for a well-funded system. From The Future of Pension Plan Funding and Disclosure Monograph, M-RS05-1.

Description: Article discusses proposal in Congress to extend the time for companies to fully fund their pension plans.