Description: Thomas B. Lowman's response to the article Reinventing Pension Actuarial Science by Lawrence Bader and Jeremy Gold. From The Pension Forum, January 2003, Volume 15, Issue No. 1.

Description: The standard for measuring retirement income adequacy has been the final earnings replacement rate (usually targeted at 70%). But - does it work?

Description: A comparison of recently used mortality assumptions among state-based and large-city public pension plans to the Pub-2010 Mortality Tables.

Description: Paper examining the degree to which certain actuarial methods satisfy public pension plan funding objectives.

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

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: Measuring the Rate of Retirement in an Interval Beginning with an Eligibility Change Point by William H. Blake, Jr. from Pension Section News, January 1998, Issue No. 35.

Description: Spending down (decumulating) assets during retirement involves complex decisions about which specific assets to liquidate in what amounts, in what order, and at what times. No established methodology exists for making these decisions in individual cases. This paper describes a manual process that individuals can follow, a process that could be automated for wider use.

Description: Abstract: A common approach to estimating the total amount of savings required to fund retirement is to first apply a generic “replacement rate” to pre-retirement income, such as 80%, to get the desired retirement income need. That need is then assumed to increase annually at the rate of inflation for the duration of retirement, which is generally assumed to be some fixed period, such as 30 years. Using government data along with a fairly simple market and mortality model, we explore these assumptions to more accurately estimate the true cost of retirement.

Description: Frequently risk is portrayed as something to be avoided, especially in public retirement plans. This paper argues taking risk is likely the prudent choice.