Increasing longevity causes an upward trend in the dependency ratio in many countries. This raises concerns about the financial sustainability of social security schemes, and reform initiatives and proposals abound. It is shown that a fundamental policy choice inevitably arises since a given...

Knowledge on mortality risk unfolds over the life-course and questions whether longevity risk should be hedged by acquiring annuities sequentially alongside an evolving information set. It is shown to be optimal for risk averse households to annuitize all old-age consumption already as young...