Expert Opinions on New Actuarial Study

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Here are some expert opinions regarding our new published study on old-age mortality. At this moment we do not disclose the identity of some experts, unless we have their explicit permission to do so. We hope that over time most names could be disclosed.

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"The new research by Leonid A. Gavrilov and Natalia S. Gavrilova, that focuses on mortality of Americans who are 90 years of age and older and its results will alter our financial approach to this valuation [of mortality/longevity risk]. Demographers and financiers need to work on this issue together, and their models must adapt to each others.

Leonid A. Gavrilov and Natalia S. Gavrilova’s research, and particularly this new study, is a great contribution to our society and an essential tool for financiers trying to develop models that focus on transforming seniors’ illiquid assets into liquid assets towards the use of financing their remaining years’ expenses."

Dr. Anne Zissu, (Sun, 08 Jan 2012)
Chair, Department of Business
NYC College of Technology, CUNY
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"I am very glad to see your findings,with which I concur. ... Fight on! "

Caleb E. Finch, Ph.D., (Wed, 18 Jan 2012)
Professor in Gerontology, Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
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"Thanks for sending this very interesting article, which I found compelling."

Susan Alberts (Mon, 23 Jan 2012 )
Professor of Biology, Duke University; and Associate Director for Science, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), Durham NC
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"...thank you very much for the indeed very interesting paper. The question of mortality deceleration (if existing at all, when, how, …) plays also an important role in my works."

Marc Luy, (Mon, 23 Jan 2012)
Senior Scientist at the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
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"Congratulations for your article. At last a scientific document arguing against the fashion about mortality deceleration. Each time I objected to these arguments, ..., I was considered as a fool. ... Your paper is really a great paper."

Noel Bonneuil, (Tue, 24 Jan and Sun, 19 Feb, 2012)
Editor-in-chief: Mathematical Population Studies journal
French Demographic Institute (INED), Paris, France
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"I must say, it is a beautiful paper; logical, well organized, clearly written, great overview of the literature both past and present, and absolutely full of new and useful insights on age-related mortality at old ages. So, congratulations to both you and Leonid for producing such an informative paper!!! I am particularly pleased as a former Argonne research scientist that George Sacher's work continues to be relevant, consistent with emerging realities and actually amazingly insightful."

Bruce A. Carnes, Ph.D. (Tue, 24 Jan 2012)
Professor, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
Reynolds Department of Geriatric Medicine
Oklahoma City, OK
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"I just reviewed your article; it's excellent....great methodology and very interesting findings, so thanks for sharing it with me. ... It's truly is a great piece of scholarly work ... and informative too."

Steven Prus, ( Fri, 27 Jan and Sat, 18 Feb, 2012)
Associate Professor, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
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"Your suggestion that mortality deceleration is partly an artifact of mixing of cohorts and misreporting of age seems to me to be an insightful and unique finding."

Dr. James J. Anderson, (Sat, 28 Jan 2012)
Research Professor, University of Washington, Seattle
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Your finding of the linear logarithmic function in old age region was striking - it's exactly what my graphs are showing. I'll continue reading and re-reading. Quite interesting article!"

Jan Karman ( Sun, 29 Jan 2012)
Demographer, Middelburg, The Netherlands
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"Very creative approach with a great data-set"

Donald K. Ingram, Ph.D. (Thu, 2 Feb 2012)
Professor, Nutritional Neuroscience and Aging Laboratory
Director, Animal Metabolism and Behavior Core
Pennington Biomedical Research Center (www.pbrc.edu)
Louisiana State University System
6400 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70808
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"Congratulations on the new publication!! It is indeed a very interesting study. Very unique! Thank you for sharing."

Hiroko H. Dodge, PhD (Sat, 4 Feb 2012)
Director, Biostatistics and Data Core, Layton Aging and Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA
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"Your paper presents an important challenge to observations of mortality deceleration at the extreme ages among human beings. You show that, despite all its deficits, the Death Master File contains a large enough volume of data to make contributions to the study of human mortality at these ages. In its large birth year cohorts, the DMF contains data whose homogeneity, at least in theory, exceeds data constructed from wider groupings."
-- KF, Tue, 17 Jan 2012, @polysystems.com

"This looks like an extraordinarily meticulous study"
-- JC, Tue, 17 Jan 2012, @ucdavis.edu

"Thanks for sending me the paper! My group is doing a lot of work on the role of cohort processes influencing long-term trends in adult mortality. Although we haven't tackled mortality at advanced ages, your paper fills in some of the gaps in our work."
-- MH, Thu, 19 Jan 2012, @prc.utexas.edu

"Nice paper Leonid. I'll be referring to your paper in my next manuscript..."
-- JO, Thu, 19 Jan 2012, @uic.edu

"Many thanks for sending me the completed version of the SSA data article. I have read it in detail. It has very serious implications for the field."
-- KW, Thu, 19 Jan 2012, @demog.berkeley.edu

"A quick look at it indicates that you have taken on an important problem and have challenged a common assumption of decelerating mortality at older ages"
-- KS, Sun, 22 Jan 2012, @fcs.utah.edu

"Very interesting. It confirms my experience trying to resolve other questions in the Framingham Heart Study data set, in which there are many traps and pitfalls that create opportunities to draw incorrect conclusions."
-- SS, Tue, 24 Jan 2012, @yale.edu

"I’m pleased to learn that there still is important age exaggeration going on."
-- JF, Tue, 24 Jan 2012, @stanford.edu

"You make a fairly strong case for using a Gompertz model for the oldest old, at least up through age 106 or so, in cases where data for homogenous cohorts are analyzed."
-- TE, Sun, 29 Jan 2012, @austin.utexas.edu

"Very interesting results, thanks for sharing. I've always been skeptical about the unobserved heterogeneity ideas but never expected your findings."
-- ST, Thu, 16 Feb 2012, @stanford.edu

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