IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/revfin/v20y2016i2p759-794..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revisiting the Risk-Neutral Approach to Optimal Policyholder Behavior: A Study of Withdrawal Guarantees in Variable Annuities

Author

Listed:
  • Thorsten Moenig
  • Daniel Bauer

Abstract

Policyholder exercise behavior presents an important risk factor for pricing Variable Annuities. However, approaches presented in the literature—building on value-maximizing strategies akin to pricing American options—do not square with observed price and exercise patterns for popular withdrawal guarantees. We show that including taxes into the valuation closes this gap between theory and practice. In particular, we develop a subjective risk-neutral valuation methodology that takes into consideration differences in the tax structure between investment opportunities. We demonstrate that accounting for tax advantages significantly affects the value of the guarantees and produces results that are in line with empirical patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Thorsten Moenig & Daniel Bauer, 2016. "Revisiting the Risk-Neutral Approach to Optimal Policyholder Behavior: A Study of Withdrawal Guarantees in Variable Annuities," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(2), pages 759-794.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:revfin:v:20:y:2016:i:2:p:759-794.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rof/rfv018
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Horneff, Vanya & Maurer, Raimond & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Rogalla, Ralph, 2015. "Optimal life cycle portfolio choice with variable annuities offering liquidity and investment downside protection," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 91-107.
    2. John Y. Campbell, 2013. "Mortgage Market Design," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-33.
    3. John Y. Campbell & João F. Cocco, 2015. "A Model of Mortgage Default," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(4), pages 1495-1554, August.
    4. Gabriella Piscopo, 2010. "Withdrawal Strategy For Guaranteed Lifelong Withdrawal Benefit Option," Perspectives of Innovation in Economics and Business (PIEB), Prague Development Center, vol. 5(2), pages 47-49, June.
    5. Jeffrey R. Brown & James M. Poterba, 2004. "Household Demand for Variable Annuities," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2004-8, Center for Retirement Research, revised Mar 2004.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thorsten Moenig, 2021. "Efficient valuation of variable annuity portfolios with dynamic programming," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(4), pages 1023-1055, December.
    2. Milevsky, Moshe A. & Salisbury, Thomas S., 2022. "Refundable income annuities: Feasibility of money-back guarantees," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 175-193.
    3. Anne Mackay & Marie-Claude Vachon, 2023. "On an Optimal Stopping Problem with a Discontinuous Reward," Papers 2311.03538, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    4. Zhiyi Shen, 2022. "Out-of-Model Adjustments of Variable Annuities," Papers 2208.12838, arXiv.org.
    5. Thorsten Moenig, 2022. "It's RILA time: An introduction to registered index‐linked annuities," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(2), pages 339-369, June.
    6. Pavel V. Shevchenko & Xiaolin Luo, 2016. "A Unified Pricing of Variable Annuity Guarantees under the Optimal Stochastic Control Framework," Risks, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-31, July.
    7. Daniel Bauer & Thorsten Moenig, 2023. "Cheaper by the bundle: The interaction of frictions and option exercise in variable annuities," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 90(2), pages 459-486, June.
    8. Moenig, Thorsten, 2021. "Variable annuities: Market incompleteness and policyholder behavior," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 63-78.
    9. Andrea Molent, 2019. "Taxation of a GMWB Variable Annuity in a Stochastic Interest Rate Model," Papers 1901.11296, arXiv.org, revised May 2020.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matteo Benetton, 2021. "Leverage Regulation and Market Structure: A Structural Model of the U.K. Mortgage Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 2997-3053, December.
    2. Malmendier, Ulrike M. & Botsch, Matthew J., 2020. "The Long Shadows of the Great Inflation: Evidence from Residential Mortgages," CEPR Discussion Papers 14934, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Carlos Garriga & Finn E. Kydland & Roman Šustek, 2017. "Mortgages and Monetary Policy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(10), pages 3337-3375.
    4. Alla Koblyakova & Larisa Fleishman & Orly Furman, 2022. "Accuracy of Households’ Dwelling Valuations, Housing Demand and Mortgage Decisions: Israeli Case," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 48-74, July.
    5. Julia Fonseca & Lu Liu, 2024. "Mortgage Lock‐In, Mobility, and Labor Reallocation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(6), pages 3729-3772, December.
    6. Lunn, Pete & McGowan, Féidhlim & Howard, Noel, 2018. "Do some financial product features negatively affect consumer decisions? a review of evidence," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS78.
    7. Piskorski, Tomasz & Seru, Amit, 2021. "Debt relief and slow recovery: A decade after Lehman," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1036-1059.
    8. Alin Marius Andries & Anca Copaciu & Radu Popa & Razvan Vlahu, 2021. "Recourse and (strategic) mortgage defaults: Evidence from changes in housing market laws," Working Papers 727, DNB.
    9. Passmore, Stuart Wayne & von Hafften, Alexander H., 2020. "Financing affordable and sustainable homeownership with Fixed-COFI mortgages," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. Carlos Hatchondo, Juan & Martinez, Leonardo & Sánchez, Juan M., 2015. "Mortgage defaults," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 173-190.
      • Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Juan M. Sanchez, 2011. "Mortgage defaults," Working Papers 2011-019, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
      • Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Juan M. Sanchez, 2015. "Mortgage Defaults," CAEPR Working Papers 2015-011, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
      • Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Juan M. Sanchez, 2011. "Mortgage defaults," Working Paper 11-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
      • Mr. Leonardo Martinez & Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Mr. Juan M. Sanchez, 2012. "Mortgage Defaults," IMF Working Papers 2012/026, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Cristian Badarinza & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai, 2018. "What Calls to ARMs? International Evidence on Interest Rates and the Choice of Adjustable-Rate Mortgages," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2275-2288, May.
    12. Liu, Lu, 2023. "The demand for long-term mortgage contracts and the role of collateral," Bank of England working papers 1009, Bank of England.
    13. Lukas, M. & Nöth, M., 2019. "Interest rate changes and borrower search behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 172-189.
    14. Adam M. Guren & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Timothy J. Mcquade, 2021. "Mortgage Design in an Equilibrium Model of the Housing Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(1), pages 113-168, February.
    15. Ghoddusi, Hamed & Afkhami, Mohamad, 2019. "Valuation of mortgage interest deductibility under uncertainty: An option pricing approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 102-122.
    16. Agatha M. Poroshina, 2014. "Credit Risk Modeling Of Residential Mortgage Lending In Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 30/FE/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    17. M. Dietsch & C. Welter-Nicol, 2014. "Do LTV and DSTI caps make banks more resilient?," Débats économiques et financiers 13, Banque de France.
    18. Rhee, Keeyoung, 2018. "The Effects of Non-Recourse Mortgages on Default Risks and Households' Surplus," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 40(3), pages 69-89.
    19. Liu, Lu, 2023. "The demand for long-term mortgage contracts and the role of collateral," ESRB Working Paper Series 142, European Systemic Risk Board.
    20. Matteo Benetton, 2017. "Lenders' Competition and Macro-prudential Regulation: A Model of the UK Mortgage Supermarket," 2017 Meeting Papers 1001, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:revfin:v:20:y:2016:i:2:p:759-794.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eufaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.