Financing retirement benefits is probably the most significant fiscal challenge that governments in industrial economies will be facing in the next few decades. Social security reform has therefore become an important public policy issue for many countries and various reform proposals have been...

Over the last couple of decades there have been unprecedent, and to some extent unexpected, increases in life expectancy which have raised important questions for retirement savings. We study optimal consumption and saving choices in a life-cycle model, in which we allow for changes in the...

Using U.K. microeconomic data, we analyze the empirical determinants of participation in the life insurance market. We find that term insurance demand is positively correlated with measures of bequest motives like being married, having children and/or subjective measures of strong bequest...