Advancing annuity demand theory, we present sufficient conditions for the optimality of full annuitization under market completeness which are substantially less restrictive than those used by Menahem E. Yaari (1965). We examine demand with market incompleteness, finding that positive...

This paper advances the theory of annuity demand. First, we derive sufficient conditions under which complete annuitization is optimal, showing that this well-known result holds true in a more general setting than in Yaari (1965). Specifically, when markets are complete, sufficient conditions...

Annuities, long-term care insurance (LTCI), and reverse mortgages appear to offer important consumption smoothing benefits to the elderly, yet private markets for these products are small. A prominent idea is to combine LTCI and annuities to alleviate both supply (selection) and demand...

This paper analyzes the effects of land use constraints on housing prices. We provide a new framework for evaluating policy when mobility across regions is allowed but limited. A key result is that loosening regulatory constraints within individual regions would have little effect on prices for...

Dense, expensive, litigious, and highly regulated, Manhattan typifies coastal US housing markets. Manhattan has lost share of US residential construction over the last 45 years. Some attribute this trend to tightening local regulation, but the decline of public housing construction and the...

This paper shows how home equity may substitute for long-term care insurance (LTCI). The elderly commonly hold substantial wealth in the form of home equity that is rarely spent before death, except for after moves to long-term care facilities. Absent strong bequest motives implies that marginal...

We analyze an economy in which desirable land is inelastically supplied. A single government sets taxes on labor income, real property, and other commodities subject to the constraint that pure land rents and elastically supplied land development and structures are taxed at a common rate. The...