A problem that faces many countries including the United States is how to finance retirement consumption as the population ages. Proposals for switching to a saving-for-retirement system that does not rely on high payroll taxes have been challenged on the grounds that welfare would fall for some...

Longevity insurance benefits are deferred annuities that start payment at an advanced age at which a substantial proportion of the birth cohort has died. In high-income countries, that would mean that these annuities would start for people in their early 80s, but when social security programs...