Description: The decline of importance of private defined benefit plans in relation to defined contribution plans in the United States is a major issue of interest to pension actuaries. This decline is undeniable, and has been attributed to numerous factors: costs of government regulation, societal and cultural changes, changed attitudes of employers, and employees' lack of understanding of defined benefit plans. It has also caused some to proclaim the end of a private defined benefit plan. This work analyzes possible macroeconomic factors contributing to the crisis of defined benefit plans, and proposes an alternative hypothesis for the cause of the crisis: the decline of relative attractiveness of defined benefit plans in relation to defined contribution plans due to the shift in the way relative returns to macroeconomic factors of production, i.e., capital and labor, are allocated in the national economy. Possibilities of improvement of the position of defined benefit plans are also discussed. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1998 Vol. 2.

Description: Paper examines the existence of select birth cohorts of unusually high longevity improvement, their geographic locations, and their effect on retirement annuities. From 2005 Living to 100 and Beyond Monograph, M-LI05-1.

Description: Discussion of the US Social security system from the perspective of Asset Liability management theory. From Asset-Liability Integration, M-FI02-1.

Description: Part 4 presents an alternate approach to obtaining the fair value of the public sector employer’s pension benefit liability.

Description: This monograph strives to define a mission for the modern insurance industry, its place in the financial intermediation network, and the role of Asset/Liability Management in that mission from the perspective of what is known about capital markets and practiced in financial engineering.

Description: These essays encourage actuaries to share how they incorporate financial risks of environmental sustainability into their work for employers or clients.

Description: This paper discusses the need for actuarial judgment to be used in conjunction with statistical analysis in the calculation of incurred but not reported IBNR claim reserves.

Description: This work investigates the use of a statistical approach to calculate the incurred but not reported IBNR reserve directly. This allows for the reserve to be estimated in one step, without completion factors, and it provides a confidence interval around the estimate of IBNR as well.

Description: Recognizing an opportunity to help serve its members in this age of increased financial oversight, the Health Section of the Society of Actuaries commissioned a series of guides on the use of statistical techniques specifically geared for the work of health actuaries. In this first guide in the series, the topic is an estimate well-known to health actuaries- the calculation of incurred but not reported [IBNR] health claims reserves. In particular, this guide focuses on the development of confidence intervals around IBNR estimates.

Description: This paper investigates the effect of select birth cohorts on pricing of mortality-based securities, such as survivor bonds, life annuities in general, or portfolios of life annuities.