Insuring retirement security is an important challenge for our aging society, and many policymakers are seeking ways to help individuals save more for retirement. The state of Oregon recently launched an auto-enrollment retirement savings program for private sector workers who lack access to...

Fama (1977) and Miller (1977) predict, that one minus the corporate tax rate will equate after-tax yields from comparable taxable and tax-exempt bonds. Empirical evidence show that long-term tax-exempt yields are higher than the theory predicts. Two popular explanations for this empirical puzzle...

Many investors purchase mutual funds through intermediated channels, paying brokers or financial advisors for fund selection and advice. This paper attempts to quantify the benefits that investors enjoy in exchange for the costs of these services. We study broker-sold and direct-sold funds from...

Fama (1977) and Miller (1977) predict that one minus the corporate tax rate will equate the after-tax yield from a taxable bond to the tax-exempt yield. This prediction is not rejected for short maturity tax-exempt and taxable bonds. However, at long maturities the yields on tax-exempt bonds are...

The answer depends on how broker clients would have invested in the absence of broker recommendations. To identify counterfactual retirement portfolios, we exploit time-series variation in access to brokers by new plan participants. When brokers are available, they are chosen by new participants...

Economists have long been puzzled by the low demand for life annuities. To shed new light on this puzzle, we study payout choices in the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, where each retiree must choose between a lump sum and a life annuity. Notably, the average life annuity we study is...

Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is a rich setting in which to study the effect of pension design on employer costs and employee retirement-timing decisions. PERS pays retirees the maximum benefit calculated using three formulas that can be characterized as defined benefit...

The answer depends on how broker clients would have invested in the absence of broker recommendations. To identify counterfactual retirement portfolios, we exploit time-series variation in access to brokers by new plan participants. When brokers are available, they are chosen by new participants...

We analyze a sample of 72 IPO firms that went public between 1992 and 1996 for which we have detailed proprietary information about the amount and cost of Damp;O liability insurance. If managers of IPO firms are exploiting superior inside information, we hypothesize that the amount of insurance...