Description: Review of Fifty-Second Annual Report of the Board of Actuaries of the Civil Service Retirement System. The authors found it to be a concise well written report discussing a number of issues facing all pensions in an inflationary economy. Both the title and the dull format in the usual Government Printing Office style would seem to insure this document's instantaneous consignment to dead storage. However, behind the cover of this small pamphlet is a concise, well written report discussing-a-number of the issues facing not only federal pension programs at the present time, but all pensions in an inflationary economy. For example, several of the 11 pages devoted to the main report discuss the implications of static assumptions ignoring inflation as opposed to dynamic assumptions including inflation.

Description: Eric Friedman’s comments on ‘The Case for Stochastic Present Values,” by Dimitry Mindlin

Description: Authors’ response to comments by Ryan Labs Asset Management on paper by James J. Rizzo Krzysztof M. Ostaszewski Piotr Krekora.

Description: Comments by Ryan Labs Asset Management on paper by James J. Rizzo Krzysztof M. Ostaszewski Piotr Krekora.

Description: Comments from Eric Friedman on “The Debate over Applying FE Principles to the Funding on Public Pension Plans: A Transition Proposal and Other Ideas,” by Thomas Lowman

Description: Author response to Eric Friedman’s comments on ‘The Case for Stochastic Present Values,” by Dimitry Mindlin

Description: Discussion of competing theories for valuing public pension liabilities. Emphasis on revised Actuarial Standards of Practice that focus on the purpose of the measurement.

Description: Brief description of articles contained in the newsletter.

Description: Discussant comments by Ryan Labs Asset Management on paper “Actuarial Methods and Public Pension Funding Objective: An Empirical Examination,” by Norman L. Jones and Brian B. Murphy and Paul Zorn