Description: It is now almost 120 years since Makeham extended Gompertz’s efforts to find a simple mathematical law which would reflect the mortality experience of a group of lives and also simplify the calculation of monetary values. This article discusses a radically different approach, relating mortality improvements to economic condition, proposed by Kohler and Alcock in an article in the Journal of Peace Research, Vol XIII entitled Economic Law of Life.

Description: This article describes techniques and models used to forecast mortality improvement and the considerations that underlie long-term mortality improvement projections in the United States.

Description: This essay advocates that the transition from DB to DC plans won't be complete until plan sponsors offer programs of retirement income in their DC plans. The essay discusses the relevant actuarial and behavioral issues.

Description: The paper summarizes results from two doctoral dissertations. The first discusses integration of insurance products with investment products to mitigate the risk of outliving one’s assets. The second discusses modeling and pricing for the longevity risk in the secondary market in insurance, including a provision for adverse deviation PAD.

Description: Abstract paper for Optimal Retirement Age.

Description: Discussion of papers presented at Living to 100 and Beyond symposium. Papers discussed: 'Dealing with Problems in Data Quality for the Measurement of Mortality at Advanced Ages' in Canada by Bourbeau and Desjardins, 'Mortality at Advanced Ages in Spain' by Felipe and Anguera, and 'Emergence of Supercentenarians in Low Mortality Countries' by Robine and Vaupei. These papers all deal with centenarians.

Description: Discussion of three papers presented at Living to 100 and Beyond symposium. Papers discussed: Paper by Ken Faig on how the Social Security Administration's Master Death File can be used as a resource to investigate mortality at later ages, paper by Kestenbaum and Ferguson on how to improve the quality of the information available on old age mortality, and paper by Gallop on older age mortality in the UK derived from public pension data.

Description: Presented at Living to 100 symposium January 2002. This paper evaluates age and sex specific patterns of change in underlying and multiple cause of death reports for the period 1980-1998 for 14 leading causes of death at ages 65 and older. Changes in four types of mortality measures will be analyzed: 1 underlying cause death rates 2 multiple cause death rates 3 associated cause death rates and 4 death rates based on the joint occurrences of multiple cause conditions. Implications of the results are discussed in the context of existing models for analyzing and forecasting future mortality patterns in the U.S.

Description: This paper proposes a new method to price the longevity risk premia in order to tackle the pricing obstacle. Based on the equivalent utility pricing principle, our method obtains the minimum risk premium required by the longevity insurance seller and the maximum acceptable risk premium by the longevity insurance buyer.

Description: Presented at Living to 100 Symposium, January 2011. This research studies coherent mortality modeling by combining a group of populations with similar period effects - e.g., mortality behaviors - in an effort to improve the stability of mortality modeling for older ages.