This paper presents a calculation of the time series of the after-tax rate of return to whole life insurancy. When compared to the after-tax return on an alternative portfolio of similar risk, more than 60%of the decline in life insurance savings (suitably defined) in the past two decades can be...

Some researchers have raised concerns about significant volatility in initial payments from fixed immediate life annuities and the subsequent inflation risk during the retirement period. This paper investigates these concerns using recent high frequency data. It finds that while there is...

This paper derives optimal equity-bond-annuity portfolios for retired households who face stochastic capital market returns, differential exposures to mortality risk and uncertain uninsured health expenses, and differential Social Security and defined benefit pension coverage. The results show...

This paper analyzes the joy of giving bequest motive in which the utility obtained from leaving a bequest depends only on the size of the bequest. It exploits the fact that this formulation can be interpreted as a reduced form of an altruistic bequest motive to derive a relation between the...

This paper analyzes the joy of giving bequest motive in which the utility obtained from leaving a bequest depends only on the size of the bequest. It exploits the fact that this formulation can be interpreted as a reduced form of an altruistic bequest motive to derive a relation between the...

The observed reluctance of most individuals in the United States to buy individual life annuities, and the concomitant approximately flat average age-wealth profile, stand in sharp contradiction to the standard life cycle model of consumption-saving behavior. The analysis in this paper lends...