Description: The financing for Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, rather than the full-reserve system utilized in private insurance, and the financing conditions of the trust funds have more uncertainty than does the reserve in private insurance. Traditionally, the financing conditions have been decided by a deterministic approach using economic and demographic assumptions that rely upon negotiation among experts at various government agencies. This paper proposes an econometric approach, called the 'co-integrated multivariate time series model,' for forecasting the financing conditions of the trust funds. This stochastic approach not only establishes the interrelationships but also clarifies the co-movements among the economic assumptions. Furthermore, it helps analyze the original assumptions rather than the differences of the nonstationary assumption variables adopted by researchers in the past that are more difficult to interpret. Use of this approach permits the assessment of the probability distribution of the future balance of trust funds instead of assessing estimates from the three alternative deterministic assumptions. This distribution will provide policy-makers with a better assessment of stability of the trust funds.

Description: This paper presents a method involving re-sampling 'with replacement but without random numbers', numerical convolutions for sums and quotients, and estimation of confidence intervals for trend in average size claim. In this paper, this method is applied to major medical claims.

Description: In this paper the author presents an application of Bayesian forecasting methods to the estimation of reserves for outstanding claims. He assumes that the time number of periods it takes for the claims to be completely paid is fixed and known, that payments are made annually and that the development of partial payments follows a stable pay-off pattern. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2003, Vol 1.

Description: This paper presents the fundamentals of creating and using projections. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1950, Vol. 2, No. 4.

Description: This paper presents a general law of mortality that is equal to a mixture of Gompertz, Weibull, Inverse-Gompertz, and Inverse-Weibull survival functions.

Description: Appendix E is round 2 on comments on application of judgmental methods from the Delphi study. See the SOA Website Research section for the full Delphi Study of Economic Variables Report along with all the variables.

Description: This paper introduces the modern concepts and definitions of the statistical subject of life testing, and ties them in with corresponding concepts of actuarial science. This paper additionally presents a justification of some common laws of mortality. Discussions of the paper are included.

Description: This paper by John Mereu describes a method for mathematically computing the expected loss under a group life contract in excess of a stated limit. The paper also shows how to compute the variance and standard deviation of the stop-loss claim and suggests how the method can be extended to group insurance benefits where the claim amount per certificate is not fixed. Paper is followed by discussions from several people

Description: Appendix D is round 2 - reasons for projections from the Delphi study. See SOA website Research section for the full report of the Delphi Study of Economic Variables Report along with all the appendices.

Description: This paper outlines a method of parametric modeling that may be used to produce forecasts and forecast intervals that will convey a measure of the reliance that may be placed on the forecasts. Followed by 2 discussion papers submitted