Description: At the November meeting of the IASB’s SAC, I raised strong support for the concept of a priority project to accelerate the development of a new conceptual framework for the IASB with emphasis on the role of reliability, the definition of liability, the meaning of probable, the effects of contingencies i.e. contingent probabilities, the unit of account and accounting for contractual rights and obligations. Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a longer address to the International Accounting Standards Board on guiding principles.

Description: My term as Investment Section Chairperson went by quickly as did my three years as a council member. My final chairperson’s corner will address upcoming changes for the Investment Section and how the membership will be called upon to help. From Risks and Rewards Newsletter, February 2005, Issue No. 46.

Description: Article comparing stable value and money market funds in terms of income production and risk level for defined contribution DC pension plan participants.

Description: Applies the economic concept of negative externality (where firms profit but create unacceptable social costs) to systemic of financial institutions. Identifies alternatives to the traditional (Pigou) response of taxing the firm.

Description: Part one of a two-part article, to be contined in Feb 2014. Provides useful rules of thumb for breaking out investment return into components of periodic arithmetic return, geometric return, the volatility of returns and the correlation of returns by asset class. Develops and relates these axiomatic concepts into rules of thumb for estimating quantiles of a range of stochastic returns.

Description: The authors outline the elements of new ALM paradigm for life insurers based on process governance, accountability, alignment and technology.

Description: This article highlights the Annual Meeting Session 39 on the Equity Risk Premium (ERP), mentions related sources. Further, it asks whether in the future we will no longer regard the ERP as a single monolithic entity but as a mosaic of premia, and also whether individual investors presently are too optimistic.

Description: Summarizes the state of US government balance sheet and defends the view that inflation will not rise sharply in the next few years.

Description: This article examines how the choice of the rebalancing frequency in a variable annuity hedging program impacts hedging.