Description: This paper represents a brief progress report on research, being sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Society of Actuaries, in the area of modeling of economic series. In particular, research is being undertaken to provide a foundation for the actuarial community’s modeling of a variety of economic variables, including interest rates, equity returns, inflation, unemployment rates, and real estate price levels. The specific objectives of this research are to provide a summary of the literature in the area of economic scenario modeling, identify data sources and methodologies in this area useful to the actuarial profession, and produce working software for economic modeling, including appropriate documentation, to be made available to the general actuarial community in order to allow actuaries to use and build upon this research. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2004, Vol. 1.

Description: This paper explains the development of the credit derivative market, describes the most common types of credit derivatives, discusses how insurers can and do use these instruments and explains the role they played in the financial market turmoil of 2008.

Description: 1994 SOA Spring Meeting, Orlando. In this session the panelists debated the diversity of professional practice about how companies and regulators can and should measure profit and set standards for profit margins. One panelist spoke of the traditional actuarial perspective, while the other represented the modern theory of finance.

Description: This is the User's Guide that accompanies the Inflation Generator Excel spreadsheet which is associated with the research report entitled 'The Effect of Deflation or High Inflation on the Insurance Industry.'