December 2023

Innovative Combo Product Design Embedding Variable Annuity and Long-Term Care Insurance Contracts

By Yang Shen, Michael Sherris, Yawei Wang & Jonathan Ziveyi This paper presents a novel combo insurance product design consisting of a variable annuity contract embedded with guaranteed minimum income benefits and long-term care insurance. This combo product provides enhanced benefits when the policyholder is functionally disabled. The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo simulation technique is utilised for numerically valuing the combo product whose underlying fund is proportionally invested in multiple asset classes. Product features including the elimination period and the maximum...

August 2020

Chilean Central Bank Measures Reduce Banks’ Risks from Pension Withdrawal

Following congressional approval of a bill to allow Chileans to withdraw up to 10% of their holdings from private pension funds, for the first time the Chilean Central Bank announced a program on July 30 to conduct repos with pension funds to purchase up to USD10 billion in senior bank bonds. This will allow pensions funds to maintain their investment positions and help reduce pressures that the pension fund withdrawal process would have likely generated on bank bonds and...

February 2019

Assessing Economic Resources in Retirement: The Role of Irregular Withdrawals from Tax-Advantaged Retirement Accounts

By Michael D. Hurd (RAND Corporation; State University of New York at Stony Brook - College of Arts and Science - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) & Susann Rohwedder (RAND Corporation) Irregular withdrawals from IRAs and DC pensions are not included in standard measures of household income in the CPS or Health and Retirement Study. Yet, among retirees such withdrawals can supplement regular retirement income to finance consumption. It has been difficult to assess their importance,...

June 2017

Assessing the Demand for Micropensions Among India's Poor

By Olivia S. Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania) & Anita Mukherjee (University of Wisconsin) Using new data from a field experiment in India, we test hypotheses about micropension design in a poor population. We elicit demand for the basic micropension in addition to variants with different minimum withdrawal ages, government match rates, and options for lump sum withdrawal. A majority (80%) of respondents report interest in the micropension, and the amount they are willing to contribute would be enough to cover...

Assessing the Demand for Micropensions Among India’s Poor

By Olivia S. Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania) & Anita Mukherjee (University of Wisconsin) Using new data from a field experiment in India, we test hypotheses about micropension design in a poor population. We elicit demand for the basic micropension in addition to variants with different minimum withdrawal ages, government match rates, and options for lump sum withdrawal. A majority (80%) of respondents report interest in the micropension, and the amount they are willing to contribute would be enough to cover...