SHARE is an international survey designed to answer the societal challenges that face us due to rapid population ageing. How do Europeans age? Under which circumstances do older people and their families live, how healthy and active are they, and how did the crisis affect them? The authors of...

Life insurers massively sell savings contracts with surrender options which allow policyholders to withdraw a guaranteed amount before maturity. These options move toward the money when interest rates rise. Using data on German life insurers, we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in...

Life insurers sell savings contracts with surrender options, allowing policyholders to prematurely withdraw guaranteed surrender values. Surrender options move toward the money when interest rates rise. Hence, higher interest rates raise surrender rates, as we document for the German life...