Description: This panel discussion examines pension plan dynamics including social security integration, benefit and cost projections under dynamic assumptions, and best estimate limitations. From the 1977 Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol.3 No.3.

Description: This panel discussion examines the valuation problems, funding methods, valuing ancillary benefits, and fluctuations in experience of small pension plans.

Description: This paper examines how the cash balance plan design is related to the normal cost and accrued liability in the various actuarial cost methods, as well as the interaction of the economic assumptions in the valuation. The analysis will show that the traditional cost methods may understate the actual liability. The paper also presents an alternative cost method, along with its advantages and disadvantages. From Cash Balance Symposium Monograph, M-RS02-3.

Description: Is the New CPI Different? The article discusses the changes made to the CPI, whether it is an accurate measure of inflation and the implications for pension plans.

Description: Chairperson talks about the activities of the section.

Description: This project aims to understand pension participants’ investment and withdrawal behaviors and provide guidance in pension plan design, using data from China

Description: This report compares the CIA pricing method for estimating group annuity closeout pricing to methods used in the US.

Description: This article describes behavioral finance and its relevance in identifying analytics and processes suitable for a control environment for the actuarial aspects of an insurance company.

Description: This paper examines tandem levels of salary and interest rates and finds that the absolute level of each assumption as well as the differential are significant cost determinants for defined benefit pension plans. In forming best-estimate salary and interest rate assumptions, the actuary must reconcile the difference, if any, between the currently observed rates and the valuation assumptions. Common practice is to choose expected long-term rather than observed rates for valuation purposes. The error in this procedure is analyzed and found to be tolerable for strictly temporary discrepancies between observed rates and valuation assumptions. For situations where these discrepancies are expected to persist for some time, a need is shown for nonuniform, calendar-year assumptions or their equivalent in order to develop best-estimate assumptions. Followed by several discussion papers submitted

Description: The Retirement Plans Experience Committee (RPEC) hired Ernst & Young to perform a literature review and assessment of mortality improvement rates in the United States population.