Take 2 competitors in the same industry as an example. Company A is forecasting health care costs to grow at 5% while Company B is forecasting health care costs to grow at only 3%. Company A is more conservative since they are forecasting a larger obligation while Company B is less conservative since their forecasted obligation is lower due to the lower growth assumption.
“More aggressive” usually means a company is recognizing more revenue or less costs than it usually should, in order to boost profitability in the financial reports. So yes. recognizing a lower liability and the respective lower costs, means that they are indeed taking a more aggressive approach.
I have another question about the same example. Solution 3. Why are we substracting from the equity the amount of increase in pension obligation? Thanks.