Description: Introduction gives a general overview the contents of the monograph. From A Study of Public Employees Retirement Systems, M-RS96-1.

Description: The presenters will provide an update on discount rates developed from the expected return on assets used in going concern pension funding. They will include recent research on discount rates being used for U.S. public sector plans, U.S. Multiple Employer Pension Plans, and Ontario and British Columbia plans. A discussion of the emerging regulatory framework in Canada and the U.S. and changes to ASOP 4 and 27 will also be covered. Components of discount rates such as expenses and margins (PfADs) will also be covered.

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

Description: Comments on Robert North’s paper, a real case study of disclosing MVL in a public employee retirement system.

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: 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.

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.