This paper develops a heterogeneous agents model to analyze the effects of Social Security survivors insurance. The model features a negative mortality-income gradient, asymmetric information of individual mortality rates, and a warm-glow bequest motive that varies by age and family structure....

Commercial insurance system acts like a memoryless system in a way that the premiums paid by the policyholders in one accounting period will be of no avail to them during subsequent periods. Here, we argue that if the insurance scheme is implemented as a not-for-profit trust fund (social...

How should we compare welfare across pension systems in presence of differential mortality? A commonly used standard utilitarian criterion implicitly favors the long-lived over the short-lived. We investigate under what conditions this ranking is reversed. We clearly distinguish between the...

In this paper we analyse several measures which are typically included in a social security reform: a cut in the social security benefits, an increase in the social security tax and tax incentives for the purchase of private life annuities, which have recently become quite popular at the...

There are two stylised facts, namely weak demand for life-annuities and flat age-wealth profile that contradict the life-cycle hypothesis. In this paper we design a theoretical framework, which combines plausible arguments, which have been put forward in the literature to reconcile theory with...

How might retirees consider deploying the retirement assets accumulated in a defined contribution pension plan? One possibility would be to purchase an immediate annuity. Another approach, called the 'phased withdrawal' strategy in the literature, would have the retiree invest his funds and then...

Retirees confront the difficult problem of how to manage their money in retirement so as to not outlive their funds while continuing to invest in capital markets. We posit a dynamic utility maximizer who makes both asset location and allocation decisions when managing her retirement financial...

This paper uses an OLG model to analyze the dilemma between efficiency and fairness, and then give a numerical simulation for China’s reform practice in pension system with Chinese data.Results showed that :1)Compared to efficiency and fair distribution, partial full-funded syste- m was better...

With the help of five models, this paper analyses pension systems in general and the direct financial effects of the retirement-age-reducing concept mentioned in the title. Th e first part assumes a financially unchanged environment, when earnings are permanent, there is no interest and everyone...

The German government introduced compulsory accident insurance for industrial firms in 1884. This insurance scheme was one of the main pillars of Bismarck's famous social insurance system. The accident-insurance system achieved only one of its intended goals: it successfully compensated workers...