September 2023
15Sep

Welfare Analysis of Housing in the Presence of Interest Rate Risk

By Servaas van Bilsen, Theo Nijman & Emiliana van Erk  We model the welfare losses of (i) the presence of a mortgage with required repayments, (ii) a minimum pension savings constraint, and (iii) imposing a suboptimal investment strategy. We develop a life-cycle model which considers housing and interest rate risk. For a reasonable set of parameter values, we find welfare losses of up to 2.41% (5.02%) if a homeowner with a 30-year fixed-rate (adjustable-rate) mortgage faces a minimum savings constraint of...

September 15, 2023
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15Sep

Risk Aversion and Savings Behavior

By Antoine Bommier, Francois Le Grand & Lionel Wilner This paper investigates the relationship between lifetime savings and risk aversion. First, we take a theoretical approach in a two-period framework with a very general non-parametric model. We show that risk aversion reduces savings in the presence of mortality risk. We then verify the negative impact of risk aversion on savings in a numerical exercise, with a multi-period setting where mortality risk is calibrated on actual demographic life-tables. Finally, we check...

September 15, 2023
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15Sep

Solving the Puzzle within the Annuity Puzzle: Incorporating Irrevocability Aversion into Annuity Choice

By Spencer Look, Tao Guo & Yuanshan Cheng  Researchers have found that annuities provide substantial benefits to retirement investors. Income annuities, which require the purchaser to irrevocably exchange an insurance premium for future income, are typically considered the most efficient vehicle to generate lifetime income. However, the Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association (“LIMRA”) estimated that the actual sales of income annuities only accounted for 12% of income-focused annuity sales (LIMRA, 2022a). Most of the sales are attributable to deferred...

September 15, 2023
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08Sep

Policy Forum: Pensions, Retirement Incentives, and the Role of Inflation

By Tammy Schirle This article describes the role of wage and price inflation for the retirement plans and well-being of registered pension plan members. The federal Public Service Pension Plan is used as an example to illustrate how wage and price inflation can be accounted for in pension design. Alternative scenarios illustrate the importance of pension plan provisions for the standard of living afforded retirees as well as incentives to delay retirement and continue working at older ages. Source @SSRN

September 8, 2023
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08Sep

The Labor Market Effects of Facilitating Social Security Contributions Under Part-Time Employment Contracts: Evidence from Colombia

By Brenda Samaniego de la Parra, Andrea Otero-Cortés & Leonardo Morales  We examine the impact of reducing rigidities caused by regulation on labor demand in a context with high informality. Using employer–employee matched administrative records and household survey data, we estimate the effects of a reform that eliminated a wedge in firms' regulatory costs of employing workers on different work schedules in Colombia, reducing the relative costs of formal parttime employment. We find that the reform increased the probability of entering...

September 8, 2023
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08Sep

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Longevity Perceptions and Implications for Financial Decision-Making

By Abigail Hurwitz, Olivia S. Mitchell & Orly Sade  Inaccurate perceptions regarding life expectancy can lead to suboptimal financial decisions with long-term consequences, including undersaving prior to retirement, and overspending during retirement. As prior research suggests that Covid-19 mortality has disproportionately harmed those with low incomes, African Americans, and Hispanics in the United States, we seek to determine whether subjective survival perceptions among these groups changed in a manner consistent with observed outcomes. We fielded two online experimental surveys of...

September 8, 2023
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01Sep

Contingency Fund: Individual Retiree Risk Management

By Jason Branning & Ray Grubbs  The goal of this article is to provide an actionable framework for contingency planning for individual retirees through the modern retirement theory (MRT) perspective. Contingency planning encompasses a retiree’s risk management processes, techniques, and strategies, along with a choice architecture. Our goal is to provide insights that are mitigating to those conditions within longevity that can impair or impact a retiree’s ability to remain retired. We offer three risk categories—known, unknown, and unknowable—as an...

September 1, 2023
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01Sep

Family Planning Confronts Delayed Retirement in China: The Retirement Intention of Only-Child Parents

By Xiao Yu, Yingdong Xu, Yue Sun & Luyao Jiao By establishing a labor-retirement model within China’s unique intergenerational support culture and one-child policy, this study provides evidence of the one-child policy’s early effect on individuals’ retirement decisions. This finding highlights a contradiction between the retirement intentions of the 1960s and 1970s generations, who are most affected by the one-child policy, and the delayed retirement policy of Chinese government. Utilizing data from the CHARLS 2011-2018 and employing OLS, IV, and...

September 1, 2023
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01Sep

Exploring the Impact of Information Environment on ESG Disclosure Behavior: Evidence from National Pensions and Foreign Investors

By Jong Won Choi, Suk Hyun & Ju Hyoung Park  This study examines the impact of institutional investors on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures of Korean companies listed on Bloomberg from 2011 to 2020. We find that while institutional investors encourage general ESG disclosure, they do not influence materiality-based ESG disclosure. Interestingly, materiality-based ESG disclosures decrease when institutional investors are major shareholders, suggesting a potential decline in disclosure quality. The study also finds a positive relationship between materiality-based...

September 1, 2023
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August 2023
25Aug

Longevity Risk and Capital Markets: The 2021-22 Update

By David P. Blake, Malene Kallestrup Lamb & Jesper Rangvid  This Special Issue of the Journal of Demographic Economics contains 10 contributions to the academic literature all dealing with longevity risk and capital markets. Draft versions of the papers were presented at Longevity 16: The Sixteenth International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conference that was held in Helsingør near Copenhagen on 13-14 August 2021. It was hosted by PerCent at Copenhagen Business School and the Pensions Institute at City,...

August 25, 2023
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