One of the oldest and most contentious debates in welfare economics and social security provision revolves around means testing. This paper reviews the history and issues in the debate about means tested welfare benefits, with particular emphasis on UK experience

In this paper, we have looked at the choice of performance targets using a unique panel database on UK CEO executive option performance targets. Using this data on performance targets along with governance data and financial data for company accounts with year ends from 2001 to 2003, we find...

Using accounting data from just over 100 Italian companies we construct various measures of exposure to severance pay. We then examine how these measures are related to subsequent market measures of risk. We find little relationship between corporate Italian severance pay exposure and either...

The large declines in equity markets observed in the United Kingdom and the United States in 2001-2002 had a significant impact on the retirement funds of many individuals approaching retirement. This decline in markets and savings offers a natural experiment from which we examine how...

This paper analyses income drawdown programs where individuals choose a starting level of income and consumption growth levels so that they are certain to run out of money at some age. We compare the consumption in such a drawdown program with the level of consumption from an annuity. Our...