Using an optimising financial planning model in the tradition of Merton (1969, 1971), and Richard (1975) we explore how individuals should determine their life insurance and annuity choices, given uncertainty about investment returns and mortality. Both consumption and bequests appear as...

Using an optimizing financial planning model in the tradition of Merton and Richard we explore how individuals should determine their life insurance and annuity choices, given uncertainty about investment returns and mortality. Both consumption and bequests appear as arguments in the...

Notional defined contribution (NDC) accounts represent a new model for social security reform that so far has been adopted in seven countries. While NDC schemes remain public, they call for the individual accounts favored by neoliberal policy analysts. NDC schemes would address many of the...

A perennial criticism regarding the use of social media in social science research is the lack of demographic information associated with naturally occurring mediated data such as that produced by Twitter. However the fact that demographics information is not explicit does not mean that it is...

This paper explores the effect of the cost and profit efficiency of Canadian life insurers on their return on equity (ROE). We take the data submitted by these insurers to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) for 2000 through 2004 and determine 1) the extent of the...

Luxury bequests impart systematic effects of age to an investor's optimal allocation: the expected percentage allocation to equities rises throughout retirement. When bequests are luxuries the marginal utility of bequests declines more slowly than the marginal utility of consumption. This is...