Description: This paper uses a Bayesian approach to persistency to explore retirement cost projection variability. The analysis is divided into two parts. In the first part a subjective population projection model is developed, based on a beta-binomial distribution for the number of participants persisting through a given age. Probability statements regarding such items as the number of participants at a given age and the distribution of retirees are developed. The second part shows how the model might be used to generate confidence intervals for retirement cost projections. Both the single-entry-age case and the multiple-entry-age case are considered. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1979, Vol. 31.

Description: A fuzzy random variable [FRV] has been conceptualized as a vague perception of a crisp but unobservable random variable [RV] and also as a random fuzzy set. Since actuaries seem receptive to these notions of FRV, and there are sources of uncertainty that RVs can not accommodate, but FRVs can, one would expect FRVs to be a component of the actuarial arsenal, but generally this is not the case. Assuming that the reason for this is that potential users are not sufficiently familiar with FRV methodology, the purpose of this article is to help alleviate this situation by presenting a FRV primer.

Description: This people provides a derivation of continuous and curtate inequalities of life contingent functions and shows how the proofs of the continuous inequalities are of an entirely different nature from the usual proofs for the curtate inequalities Followed by discussion papers submitted by several authors