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

Description: Paper discusses transition considerations if bond-based discount rates are used for funding public pension plans.

Description: Excel spreadsheet illustrating a specific proposal outlined in the paper, with detailed explanations.

Description: Part 2 proposes solutions to the second of three flaws of the current financial model to obtaining the fair value of the public sector employer’s pension benefit liability.

Description: Comments from David Wescoe on session 5 of the Public Pension Finance Symposium.

Description: Obsolescence of physical assets and processes is a major component of operational risk for some companies. A simulation experiment shows that managers, who consider the retirement and replacement of individual assets in isolation, have rational incentives, due to risk aversion and uncertainty, to defer the replacement of assets past a time that is optimal from the perspective of the shareholder who owns the entire portfolio of such assets. This results in measurable wealth destruction, —and a demonstrable opportunity to significantly enhance a company’s value. A practical decision model for the replacement timing of fixed, physical assets, which creates wealth by minimizing the long-term consumption of scarce resources, is provided.

Description: We develop a model based on causal mortality in order to better understand inequalities in life expectancy across socioeconomic circumstances.

Description: Chapter 5 simulates the risk adjustment process within a hypothetical purchasing alliances using four different risk assessment methods. From A Comparative Analysis of Methods of Health Risk Assessment, M-HB96-1.

Description: Three appendices: Selected Readings, Summary of Data Preparation and Data Issues, and Detailed Results on Predictive Accuracy. From A Comparative Analysis of Methods of Health Risk Assessment, M-HB96-1.

Description: Summary of Session 83 of October 2010 Annual Meeting. Summary of the four top topics: cash flow testing, federal healthcare legislation, peer review in a small company setting and experience data reporting.