Description: Investment volatility can lead to unacceptable levels of contribution volatility and wide swings in a retirement plan’s perceived funded status. This paper approaches the volatility problem from a plan design perspective.

Description: This article addresses a specific PGAAP issue companies have faced recently in implementing PGAAP, specifically, whether it is appropriate, under current purchase accounting guidance, to defer heaped renewal commissions. From Society of Actuaries Financial Reporting Monograph, M-AS99-1.

Description: The amount of 1 [i.e., the amount that $ 1 is worth after 1 year] for an account earning a nominal interest r compounded n times annually is Pn[r,t], where t = [t1, . . . ,tn]. Note that Pn[r,t] is a polynomial in r of degree n. Now suppose that the n compounding periods have lengths T1, . . . ,Tn chosen at random. What can we say about Pn[r , T] , where T=[T1, . . . , Tn]? This depends of course on what is meant by choosing random lengths and we will consider two different natural possibilities that give rise to different answers to this question.

Description: Informal discussion of session 1A