We study optimal portfolio choice and labour market participation in a continuous time setting in which agents face health shocks, medical expenses, and random lifetimes. We explore the implications of different forms of health coverage and study their impact on dynamic portfolios and labour...

We optimize the asset allocation, consumption and bequest decisions of an investor with uncertain lifetime and under time-varying investment opportunities. The asset menu is given by stocks, zero coupon bonds and pure endowments with different maturities. The latter are contingent on either a...

Means-tested pension policies are typical for many countries and are very important to the pension system. These policies are specific for each country, and the assessment of policy changes is critical for policy makers. In this paper we consider the Australian means-tested Age Pension. The...

Historical tontines promised enormous rewards to the last few survivors at the expense of those died early. And, while this design appealed to the gambling instinct, it is a suboptimal way to manage and generate retirement income. This is why fair life annuities making constant payments -- where...

In this paper we employ a lifecycle model that uses utility of consumption and bequest to determine an optimal Deferred Income Annuity (DIA) purchase policy. We lay out a mathematical framework to formalize the optimization process. The method and implementation of the optimization is explained,...

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...

Inflation for retirees is different from, and mostly higher than, the macroeconomic (average) inflation rate for the entire population. In the U.S. for example, the Consumer Price Index for the Urban population (CPI-U) calculated and reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has a lesser...

This paper explores the application of contingent claims analysis (CCA) to two quot;hotquot; issues in life-cycle finance: (1) investing for retirement and (2) deciding when, if ever, to switch careers. Participants in individual retirement accounts do not have the time or the knowledge to make...

In this paper we generalize the following result of Yaari (1965) on annuitization with an agent's optimal retirement: it is optimal for individuals to annuitize all of their wealth in the absence of bequest motive. We have other results that refine or extend the result of Yaari (1965). Full...