For a retiree who must maintain both investment and longevity risks, we consider the impact on decision making of focusing on an objective relating to the terminal wealth at retirement, instead of a more correct objective relating to a retirement income. Both a shortfall and a utility objective...

I explore the diversity among pension plans offered to faculty at 52 Canadian universities. Far from displaying homogeneity, I find marked differences between the plans, both in their structure (DB, DC and hybrid) and in the size of the pension benefit from those plans. Using financial...

We estimate the relationship between the returns on housing, stocks, and bonds, and simulate a variety of decumulation strategies incorporating reverse mortgages. We show that homeowner’s reversionary interest, the amount that can be borrowed through a reverse mortgage, is a surprisingly risky...

One of the critical challenges facing the 50 generation is deciding how to plan for retirement financing, how to convert assets into income and, generally, how to make sensible financial decisions for the next stage of their lives. Considering how complicated retirement planning and finance can...

We derive an expression for the lifetime ruin probability (LRP), defined as the probability a fixed consumption plan will deplete an investment portfolio prior to a retiree's stochastic time of death, assuming the investment return driving the portfolio obeys a jump-diffusion process. This is in...

Past research on the topic of sustainable withdrawal rates has primarily focused on longer distribution periods which apply to younger age retirees.A structural problem with pensions, annuities, and first generation "safe withdrawal rate" is a disconnect of benefits paid (fixed or fixed with...

Most Americans have not estimated how much they need to save for retirement. This lack of awareness may contribute to low levels of retirement savings. We investigate the relation between planning and retirement wealth. Those who have estimated how much they need to save for retirement have...

Investors face a long and uncertain journey to retirement and beyond, particularly when investing in new defined contribution schemes such as New Zealand's KiwiSaver. This paper seeks to provide positive insights into the design of KiwiSaver by assessing the recently announced move from 4 to 6%...

I solve the life-cycle portfolio allocation problem of a disappointment averse (DA) agent with labor income risk. DA preferences overweight disappointing outcomes and are consistent with behavior highlighted by the Allais paradox. I show that unlike constant relative risk aversion (CRRA)...