Search results for "Pension"

Notes on Using the Hidden Asset or the Contribution Asset to Compile the Actuarial Balance for Pay-as-You-Go Pension Systems

2010

The aim of this paper is twofold: to determine the connection between the “contribution asset” and the “hidden asset” and to discover whether using either of them to compile the actuarial balance in Swedish-type pay-as-you-go pension systems will provide a reliable solvency indicator. We develop an overlapping generations model and apply it to the defined benefit pay-as-you-go system, although it would be just as valid for NDC systems. On the theoretical side the main conclusion is that, despite their very different natures, in a simplified scenario the contribution asset and the hidden asset could coincide if r - the real rate of interest - is equal to the growth in the wage bill. On the a…

Alhydrogel® adjuvant, ultrasonic dispersion and protein binding: A TEM and analytical study

2011

Aluminium-based vaccine adjuvants have been in use since the 1920s. Aluminium hydroxide (alum) that is the chemical basis of Alhydrogel, a widely used adjuvant, is a colloid that binds proteins to the particular surface for efficient presentation to the immune system during the vaccination process. Using conventional TEM and cryo-TEM we have shown that Alhydrogel can be finely dispersed by ultrasonication of the aqueous suspension. Clusters of ultrasonicated aluminium hydroxide micro-fibre crystals have been produced (∼ 10-100 nm), that are significantly smaller than those present the untreated Alhydrogel (∼ 2-12 μm). However, even prolonged ultrasonication did not produce a homogenous susp…

La sospensione-estinzione del processo esecutivo : i nodi dell'art. 624 c.p.c. vengono al pettine

2010

Incorporating big microdata in life table construction: A hypothesis-free estimator

2019

Abstract The IT revolution, now more than ever, offers a cheaper and faster way to collect, store, transmit and process data. Detailed microdata of dates of death, migration and birth are already becoming available for general populations. In this paper, we develop within the family of period-based estimators a new, assumption-free estimator for constructing life tables. The estimator proposed exploits all the detailed data available and is free of the theoretical inconsistencies that the estimators currently used by most official statistical agencies have. We compute the proposed estimator for a real database and test the suitability of the hypotheses on which the estimators used so far re…

Converting retirement benefit into a life care annuity with graded benefits

2016

AbstractThis paper deals with life care annuities, i.e. bundled products comprising a life annuity and long-term care insurance. It aims to assess the cost of converting retirement benefit into a life care annuity with graded benefits using a pre-existing public pay-as-you-go pension scheme. With this objective in mind, we present an actuarial method based on array calculus for valuing this type of life care annuity. The health dynamics of the annuitant rely on a reversible illness-death multistate framework. The paper contains a numerical example in which mortality and disability assumptions are based on data from the USA and Australia, although this should be viewed simply as an illustrat…

Assessing implicit hypotheses in life table construction

2016

AbstractMortality figures are of capital importance for policy-making and public planning, as in forecasting financial provisions in public pension systems. General population life tables are constructed from aggregated statistics, an issue that usually entails adopting some (implicit) assumptions in their construction, such as the hypothesis of closed demographic system or the hypotheses of uniform distributions of death counts (and migration events) by age and calendar year. As microdata have become more abundant and reliable, these hypotheses could be assessed and more assumption-free estimators employed. Using a real database from Spain, we show that the above hypotheses are not appropr…

Estimation of the Combined Effects of Ageing and Seasonality on Mortality Risk: An Application to Spain

2021

Abstract Despite the overwhelming evidence that shows the persistence of intra-annual variations on demographic events (deaths, birth dates and migration flows), life tables are computed and provided on an annual basis. This paper develops a new estimator for estimating sub-annual death rates that, considering the exact moment of occurrence (exact age and day) of events, concurrently accounts for ageing and calendar fluctuations. This paper also shows how modelling the intra-annual variations of death rates, through specific seasonal–ageing indexes, can be used as a tool for constructing new sub-annual tables from annual tables. This new methodology is exemplified using a real database of S…

To make a glass—avoid the crystal

2016

Colloidal model systems allow for a flexible tuning of particle sizes, particle spacings and mutual interactions at constant temperature. Colloidal suspensions typically crystallize as soon as the interactions get sufficiently strong and long-ranged. Several strategies have been successfully applied to avoid crystallization and instead produce colloidal glasses. Most of these amorphous solids are formed at high particle concentrations. This paper shortly reviews experimental attempts to produce amorphous colloidal solids using strategies based on topological, thermodynamic and kinetic considerations. We complement this overview by introducing a (transient) amorphous solid forming in a thoro…

Designing and pricing guarantee options in defined contribution pension plans

2015

Abstract The shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) is pervasive among pension funds, due to demographic changes and macroeconomic pressures. In DB all risks are borne by the provider, while in plain vanilla DC all risks are borne by the beneficiary. However, for DC to provide income security some kind of guarantee is required. A minimum guarantee clause can be modeled as a put option written on some underlying reference portfolio and we develop a discrete model that selects the reference portfolio to minimize the cost of a guarantee. While the relation DB–DC is typically viewed as a binary one, the model shows how to price a wide range of guarantees creating a continu…

The Mean-Field Limit for Solid Particles in a Navier-Stokes Flow

2008

We propose a mathematical derivation of Brinkman's force for a cloud of particles immersed in an incompressible viscous fluid. Specifically, we consider the Stokes or steady Navier-Stokes equations in a bounded domain Omega subset of R-3 for the velocity field u of an incompressible fluid with kinematic viscosity v and density 1. Brinkman's force consists of a source term 6 pi rvj where j is the current density of the particles, and of a friction term 6 pi vpu where rho is the number density of particles. These additional terms in the motion equation for the fluid are obtained from the Stokes or steady Navier-Stokes equations set in Omega minus the disjoint union of N balls of radius epsilo…