Description: This working paper discusses the risks of investing in stocks in public pension funds.

Description: Pension Forecasts, Part One: Some Questions by Lawrence N. Bader from Risks and Rewards Newsletter, February 2001, Issue No. 36.

Description: This paper discusses the limits placed on actuarial pension practice since the passage of ERISA. From The Pension Forum, January 2003, Volume 15, Issue No. 1.

Description: Pension Forecasts, Part II: The Model Has No Clothes by Lawrence N. Bader from Risks and Rewards Newsletter, July 2001, Issue No. 37.

Description: Due to the decline in interest rates in 1993, the SEC staff began focusing on the discount rates being used for pension and postretirement benefit accounting under FASB Statement of Financial Accounting Standards FAS 87, 'Employers' Accounting for Pensions,' and FAS 106, 'Employers' Accounting for Postretirement Benefits Other Than Pensions.' Employers will need to assess their discount rates and, for some, reduce those rates significantly. To help plan sponsors comply with the SEC guidelines, Salomon Brothers has developed a Pension Discount Curve and a Pension Liability Index. This report reviews the construction of these two measures, as of December 1994.

Description: Falling equity markets and interest rates have devastated pension plans worldwide during the past several years. The Standard & Poor’s 500 companies enjoyed a collective pension surplus of $252 billion in 1999. Even after the 2003 market rally, they face a deficit of $179 billion in 2003 Bianco 2003. These events have spotlighted the weakness of current funding and investment practices for corporate defined benefit pension plans. This article presents a case for securing all accrued benefits through “Full Funding.”

Description: The Case Against Stock in Corporate Pension Funds

Description: Many pension funds have recently established dedicated or 'matched' portfolios. These are portfolios of fixed-income securities whose cash flows from interest and maturities match the expected benefit payment stream on a block of liabilities. With particular reference to ERISA, this paper explores the actuarial mechanics of pension funding under dedication, including the selection of assumptions, the valuing of assets, funding of the initial change in unfunded liability, and funding of subsequent gains and losses. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1983, Vol. 35.