Description: A primer for pension actuaries and others to learn what financial economics says about how pension plans are designed, invested, accounted for and funded. This guide focused on private single employer plans with widely held stock.

Description: This article describes the library of material created by The Pension Finance Task Force on the SOA Web site containing well over 100 papers, essays, articles, and newsletters. Links to this information is provided. From the Pension Section News, September 2008, Issue No. 68.

Description: The paper demonstrates that the most popular rationalization for evolving glide paths is flawed and should be discarded. The paper also demonstrates that glide paths should generally evolve for investors that endeavor to optimize outcomes and reevaluate their portfolios regularly.

Description: This paper discusses whether the use of relatively risk-free discount rates are appropriate under assumptions of substantial continuation of plan design and greatly increasing per capita payments, when the plan sponsor can dramatically change future cash flows. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice in Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.

Description: This article provides key insights and data samples about various approaches to pension investing. Article from Risk and Rewards, August 2006, Issue No. 48.

Description: The article and guidebook of the same name use a stochastic simulation model to examine potential impacts of public pension plan risk-sharing policies on government employers and plan members. Policies examined include simple policies such as COLAs and employee contributions that are contingent upon investment returns or funded ratios, and more-complex policies similar to those used in the Wisconsin Retirement System.

Description: Abstract for a paper that attempts to identify defined benefit plan design principles that provide valuable employee benefits at reasonable costs. From The Future of Pension Plan Funding and Disclosure Monograph, M-RS05-1. Presented at The Future of Pension Plan Funding and Disclosure Symposium held July 14-15, 2005 in Washington, DC. This monograph is a case study.

Description: A mathematical framework for benefits and choices must be created to model benefit selection. This paper creates such a framework by defining benefit plans as reimbursement functions. These are then used with a defined choice function to calculate the cost deviation due to selection. Finally, utility functions can be applied to this framework to predict choice.