This paper develops an analytical model that describes how to construct a hedging portfolio that takes into account the adverse tax treatment of derivative securities so that a position is fully hedged on an after-tax basis regardless of the tax treatment. A pre-tax hedge, under the presumption...

Existing studies of household stock trading using administrative data offer conflicting results: discount brokerage accounts exhibit excessive trading, while retirement accounts show inactivity. This paper uses population-wide data from PSID and SCF to examine the overall extent of household...

We study a class of portfolio choice problems that combine life insurance and labor income under constant relative risk aversion preferences (CRRA) preferences for consumption, within the optimal control framework pioneered by Merton (1969, 1971). Our model differs from previous research by (i)...

This paper quantifies the impact of return uncertainty when measuring the relative benefits of mutual funds versus variable annuities by calculating the certainty equivalents of utility. This paper points out that the possibility of an investment loss endows the holder of the mutual fund with a...

In this paper we investigate the actual portfolio choice and asset allocation behavior of individuals who acquire insurance in the form of an out - of - the - money long dated put option on their investment funds. We compare their allocations against those who do not elect and pay for this type...

The emotionally charged debate regarding the broader role of corporations within society has landed squarely in the lap of pension fund and endowment trustees, many of whom are being pressured by their stakeholders to divest themselves of companies that lack so-called social responsibility. Some...

In this paper we offer a novel method of assessing whether exchanging one variable annuity (VA) policy for another, destroys or adds value from a purely economic perspective. We do this by decomposing the policy into a portfolio of financial options and then use an option pricing model to...

During the year 2002, The State of Florida's 600,000 public employees were given the unprecedented ability to convert their traditional Defined Benefit (DB) pension plan, into a self-managed Defined Contribution (DC) plan, where the individual controls asset allocation and investment decisions....

Most U.S.-based insurance companies offer holders of their tax-sheltered savings plans (VAs), the long-term option to annuitize their policy at a pre-determined rate over a pre-specified period of time. Currently, there is approximately one trillion dollars invested in such policies, with...