Description: In March this year a charter for the new corporation, the College Retirement Equities Fund, was granted by the State of New York and it is expected that within a few months the Fund will begin operations as a supplement to TIAA annuities. The purpose of this paper is to describe this rather novel type of corporation, which presents some unusual and interesting actuarial problems. Comparisons of the performance of fixed annuities vs. variable annuities are provided.

Description: This paper presents the general notion of a periodogram, following Elphinstone's approach. The paper then goes on to examine symmetric linear operators and their periodograms in preparation for the end discussion of periodograms of graduators.

Description: This paper was prepared to facilitate discussions with the New York State Insurance Department concerning price regulation and the application of minimum loss ratio standards for individual health insurance. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1982, Vol. 34.

Description: In calculations involving the distribution of total claims in a risk theory setting, several authors have found it desirable to approximate a risk-theoretic distribution by use of the incomplete gamma function. A recent paper evaluated an excess loss ratio premium by use of a gamma distribution whose first and second moments agreed with those of the risk-theoretic loss distribution. A discussion of that paper pointed out that a translated gamma distribution allowed one to make the approximate distribution agree with the risk-theoretic distribution as far as the first three moments are concerned. The method presented in this paper allows one to make as many moments of the approximate distribution as desired agree with those of the risk-theoretic loss distribution. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1966, Vol. 18, Pt. 1, No. 52.

Description: This paper first discusses the history of the legislation of the joint and survivor benefits for the uniformed service personnel. It then goes on to address the specific actuarial assumptions made and the formulas developed for applying these assumptions for adaptability to the UNIVAC. This paper closes with specific programming procedures involved in using the UNIVAC.

Description: This is a discussion of the title paper by Eugene A. Rasor and Robert J. Myers. Included is an alternative proof of the theorem provided in the paper.

Description: Traditional pension cost methods are based on the actuarial present value of future benefits [which is a mean value]. As a consequence, these cost methods are deficient because they cannot provide plan sponsors with certain valuable information such as the probability that the accumulation of a particular sequence of contributions will ultimately provide sufficient funds to pay benefits, or the size of fund needed to ensure that retirees' lifetime benefits are paid with a specified probability. In response to these deficiencies, a new family of cost methods, called a-percentile cost methods, is developed. These cost methods are based on the probability of adequately covering all participants' benefits. Expressions for the normal cost, the accrued liability and the gain are provided. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1993, Vol. 45.

Description: It is well accepted that, for ages 30 and above, human mortality rates increase with age, yet no established graduation method makes direct use of this knowledge. Such a method is offered in this paper.

Description: The primary purpose of this paper is to set forth one method of evaluating vested pension costs and to suggest a simple way for the actuary to make provision in his pension cost calculations for specific vesting schedules. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1966, Vol. 18, Pt. 1, No. 52.

Description: This paper presents a generalized profits released model which resolves the difficulties of the traditional analysis posed by products that have fluctuating profits and losses over time or have no initial investment. Discussions of the paper are included.