A Digital Picture of the Actuarial Research Community

Abstract

The evolution of publication patterns in actuarial research is described through a survey of the contents of four peer-reviewed journals identified in several studies as the most influential in the field, including the North American Actuarial Journal. The research output of countries and institutions is compared over the 30-year period 1982–2011 on the basis of the number of articles and pages published, adjusted for journal page size. While simple counts such as these are only a cursory measure of productivity, and certainly not a measure of quality, they lead to rankings that broadly reflect the level of activity in actuarial research worldwide. Countries and institutions that are most active in the field are easily identified from these rankings. Such information is valuable to governmental funding agencies and administrators in academia or industry responsible for the quantitative assessment of research performance. Young researchers and prospective graduate students may also find it useful to acquaint themselves with the breadth of the actuarial research community.