Papers and reports

A study of the history of public superannuation schemes reveals that, in general, steady progress has been, and is being, made; there is, however, little consistency as between various branches of the public service. There have already been many post-war developments, in which there is some evidence of a common pattern, yet in which there are many startling divergencies.

This paper is the record of an attempt by an ordinary actuary, who entered the profession in days when statistics were but a nugatory ingredient in the examination syllabus, to get a little clearer in his mind about some of the similarities and differences between the traditional technique of the actuary and the methods which have been developed for dealing with statistical material in other fields. It seemed that the result might be of some general interest, and it is from this point of view that the paper is submitted to the Institute.

Several methods of forecasting mortality have from time to time been suggested. Some of them have, however, only been applied to the statistics of one or two countries and, while they have been found to be satisfactory in these cases, we cannot justifiably say that the assumptions on which they are based are universally valid. In s.3-7 these standard methods of mortality forecasting will, with necessary modifications, be applied to Australian data.

Reviews of: A history of British insurance [1^st ed.], by Harold Raynes -- Life assurance from proposal to policy, by H Hosking Tayler and V W Tyler FIA; fifth edition by H Noel Freeman) -- Rank correlation methods, by Maurice G. Kendall -- Statistical report on the health of the Army, 1943-1945, published by HM Stationery Office -- The elements of actuarial science, by R. E. Underwood FIA -- Superannuation schemes, by Gordon R Hosking FIA and R C B Lane FIA – Medical statistics from Graunt to Farr, by Major Greenwood -- Karl Pearson’s early statistical papers. Published 1948.