This paper has two functions: first, in part 1, to present briefly the results of some recent investigations into the behaviour of a price index (in the United Kingdom) in order to gain some insight into the possible future progress of inflation; secondly, in parts 2–4, to present the arguments in favour of the linking to a price index of financial instruments, in particular government stocks, life assurance contracts and pension fund benefits. Part 1 is heavily statistical, and those who prefer the controversial material can go straight to part 2, noting only the conclusion to part 1, viz.: that it is not easy to forecast inflation over any lengthy period. Parts 2–4 are controversial, and I expect will still be topical when the paper is presented. I make no pretence to be impartial; I am convinced that widespread index-linking of long-term contracts would have a beneficial effect on the conduct of our financial affairs. It is up to those who disagree with me to put their case in the discussion; but I hope my supporters will express their views too.

This is not so much a paper as a series of loosely-connected essays and it requires explanation.

For some years I have felt that my generation had an unusual duty to the history of the profession. The first 180 years of actuarial history no doubt seemed eventful enough at the time but they took place against a stable background when interest rates were seldom outside the range 3% to 5%. But since 1945, say, a turbulence undreamed of in those earlier days has become the commonplace of our activities.

This problem concerns n couples around a circular table, husbands and wives seated alternately. The number of ways in which the n couples can be seated such that no husband and wife sit next to each other is required. This problem is not covered in the standard texts such as Feller (1950) or Whitworth (1901) who concentrate on the simpler linear problem, i.e. seating arrangements in a row. In this paper we obtain a solution for the circular problem, deriving thereby the probability that no such matching occurs when the seating is made at random, and showing finally that this probability has a limiting value when n is large.

This note continues an annual series on mortality rates in Great Britain; the previous note in the series appeared in J.I.A. 107, 529 and dealt with mortality in 1978. Tables 1 and 2 below show central death-rates for Great Britain for the years from 1966 to 1979 and Tables 3 and 4 show the ratios of these rates to the corresponding average rates for the three years 1970–72, which have been taken as a standard. Death-rates in this form for the years from 1961 to 1978 have been published in earlier notes in this series. The rates for 1979 have been calculated using the deaths recorded as occurring in Great Britain in 1979 and the ‘home’ population at 30 June 1979, i.e. the number of people actually in the country at the time, as estimated by the Registrars General of England and Wales and of Scotland.

Richard Witt's Arithmeticall Questions, published in 1613, was a landmark in the history of compound interest. In a previous paper (J.I.A. 96, 121) I have described the book and attempted to show why it is so important.

This article sets out some information about Witt's life, which has come to light as a result of research done since the previous article (when very little was known about him). Then follows a discussion of some of the books on compound interest which were published later in the seventeenth century. These not only help to fill in the practical background but also show how the techniques came to be more widely known and how problems arose when interest rates were reduced. It is worth noting that there was an average inflation rate of around 1% p.a. during the first half of the century and an average inflation rate of nil, or even a slight deflation, during the second half (Birks & Morrell, 1976; Mitchell & Deane, 1962). Thus, to a very considerable extent, the interest rates used in calculations were real rates of interest.