Michelle Yuanying Guan, Ph.D., AS
Micah Pollak, Ph.D.

The 2007/2008 housing market and financial crisis in the United States highlighted the need for a better understanding of how demographic and population trends affect the housing market. A recent U.S. population trend has been a significant growth in foreign-born population through immigration. Using panel data on housing, immigration and other socioeconomic variables for U.S. metropolitan statistical areas for the years between 2009 and 2016, we analyze the relationship between immigration and housing prices common across these areas. We show that foreign-born population growth is associated with falling housing prices and rising rent prices, which is consistent with differences in housing preferences between foreign-born and native population.  However, individual-specific effects for U.S. metropolitan areas play a larger role than any common factor.

Dr. Michelle Yuanying Guan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Actuarial Science at Indiana University Northwest. She earned a Ph.D. in Financial Mathematics from Florida State University, and a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Peking University. She is an active member of the Organizing Committee for the Actuarial Science Educational Panel for Faculty at the annual Joint Mathematics Meetings.

Dr. Micah Pollak is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the School of Business and Economics at Indiana University Northwest. He earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois and joined the faculty in 2012. His research areas include the financial economics, applied microeconomics and regional economics and he has published research on the unique economic and demographic challenges that face the Gary, IN Metropolitan area.

Workshop Presentation

Kevin Wolf, FSA, MAAA

Kevin Wolf will go behind and beyond the article that he wrote for Contingencies magazine in Jul/Aug 2018 entitled, A Long Stroll through Avoca Cemetery: An actuarial study … and a few meditations and meanderings. He’ll discuss the publication process, problems he had, research he did then and since, his results, and the usefulness of such results.

Kevin Wolf has over 35 years’ experience in the health care field. His specialty is prescription drug modeling. He has done minimum value actuarial attestation under the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act of 2010, helped clients receive the retiree drug subsidy (RDS) under the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, and done state rate filing for pharmacy capitations. He formed his own consulting firm, Kevin Wolf & Associates, LLC in 2012. He was a partner at Larimer & Wolf Consulting Actuaries from 2007 to 2012. From 1979 to 2007 he worked for health insurance companies (including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, and CNA in Chicago) and consulting firms (including Bob Gold & Associates and Ernst & Young).

Workshop Presentation

Patrick Nolan, FSA, MAAA

This session will highlight the mortality experience of a large set of public pension systems in the United States for experience years 2009-2013.

At the conclusion of the presenters, attendees will be able to:
• Demonstrate an understanding of recent years’ mortality experience for public pension systems;
• Compare and contrast mortality patterns for different job categories within public pension plans; and
• Compare and contrast mortality patterns observed in the public sector against those observed in the RP-2014 Mortality Tables, which were based on private sector data.

Patrick Nolan has been an Experience Studies Actuary with the Society of Actuaries since July of 2014. He has managed experience studies in the fields of group annuities, public-sector pension mortality, private-sector pension mortality, U.S. population mortality, and mortality improvement modeling. Prior to working at the SOA, Patrick worked for six years at Towers Watson in their retirement consulting practice.

Workshop Presentation

Marianne Clifford, FSA, MAAA, CERA

This presentation will provide statutory regulatory updates and review highlights from recent LATF conference calls as well as the LATF and HATF meetings at the NAIC 2018 fall meeting in San Francisco. Upcoming changes to the Valuation Manual will be discussed. We will also go over recent Academy resources related to PBR.

Marianne is a Manager of Actuarial Services in PolySystems Chicago office and has more than 20 years of experience in the life insurance industry, mainly in financial reporting. Marianne works on PolySystems production team supporting life and annuity clients with project implementation and actuarial consulting. She previously worked at two stock life insurance companies and a consulting firm.

Workshop Presentation