What is the general rule ? Include inflation or not?
It depends if the pension plans obligations/liabilities are inflation indexed or not, especially if you are using a liability mimicking approach to reduce surplus volatility
Unless it specifically says that the Actuarial Rate doesn’t include inflation, I’m going to omit it.
You are talking about the return requirement right?Haven’t seen any exercises with inflation. Isn’t it included in the discount rate?
So, if they are inflation indexed we wont use inflation in return calculation. I confirmed this from 2012 paper.
But what if they are not inflation indexed? Do we include inflation or not?
if they are inflation indexed you dont adjust for inflation else you have to. but all will depend on case facts and what question precisely is asked.