Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 1. This article discusses the impact of a change in procedure in the financing of the US Military Retirement System. The change requires amortizing the past service liability. The impact will depend upon whether the amortization is achieved by increasing current taxes and decreasing the current deficit, or by merely increasing the national debt and leaving the current deficit unchanged. The author asserts that the new financing method will not weaken the financial condition of the military retirement system, and that it has the potential to strengthen its financial condition if the funding of the past service liability is handled appropriately.

Description: This paper describes rates of disability based on recent experience under public retirement plans for U.S. Government Employees: 1988–1993. From Pension Section News, April 1998, Issue No. 36.

Description: This article discusses that mortality tables should reflect improving mortality. The Group Annuity Mortality table GAM-83 is probably the most common table used by pension actuaries—75 percent of the plans in Watson Wyatt’s “2003 Survey of Actuarial Assumptions and Funding” use GAM-83 for funding calculations. However, there are three more recently published tables that warrant consideration for use in pension valuations: UP-94, GAM-94 and RP-2000. From Pension Section News, January 2006, No. 60.

Description: The article is a summary of Society of Actuaries report entitled “Annuity Market Pricing Approaches” sponsored by the Retirement Section Research Committee. The report examines the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) methodology of developing solvency valuation assumptions, compares it to methods used in the U.S., and considers if it could be used in other markets, such as U.S. group annuities or individual annuities

Description: This paper is a follow-up to the papers in the January and April 2005 editions of the Pension Forum, which focused on the interest assumptions to be used in pension funding. This paper focuses on the other assumptions used to calculate pension liabilities—mortality, early retirement and expense. From Pension Section News, April 2006, No. 61.

Description: Zvi Bodie's response to the article Reinventing Pension Actuarial Science by Lawrence Bader and Jeremy Gold. From The Pension Forum, January 2003, Volume 15, Issue No. 1.

Description: This paper concludes that there are two index rates that could best replace the 30-year Treasury in the calculation of the Current Liability of a pension plan - either the 30 year swap rate or the benchmark 30-year FNMA bond.

Description: Robert North critiques the article Reinventing Pension Actuarial Science by Lawrence Bader and Jeremy Gold. From The Pension Forum, January 2003, Volume 15, Issue No. 1.

Description: This is a presentation on two current research projects - The Macrodemographic Model and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GATT Mortality Study. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 22, No. 2.

Description: A response to American Legislative Exchange Council's report "Unaccountable and Unaffordable" in light of applicable Actuarial Standards of Practice.