IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_2125.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Flexible Life Annuities

Author

Listed:
  • Alexis Direr

Abstract

Annuity contracts typically deliver a stream of income at a predetermined level in order to insure against the risk of longevity. This paper explores whether flexible annuities, which give subscribers the possibility to choose between different levels for their annuities, may be welfare enhancing. In the case where agents gradually discover their actual probability of survival, a predetermined and "one-size-fits-all" annuity plan is optimal. If an expenditure risk is added along with the longevity risk, a flexible annuity plan is better even though the consumption path cannot be isolated from uninsured expenses anymore.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexis Direr, 2007. "Flexible Life Annuities," CESifo Working Paper Series 2125, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2125
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp2125.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Jeffrey R., 2001. "Private pensions, mortality risk, and the decision to annuitize," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 29-62, October.
    2. Thomas Davidoff & Jeffrey R. Brown & Peter A. Diamond, 2005. "Annuities and Individual Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1573-1590, December.
    3. Jeffrey R. Brown & Mark J. Warshawsky, 2001. "Longevity-Insured Retirement Distributions from Pension Plans: Market and Regulatory Issues," NBER Working Papers 8064, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jeffrey R. Brown, 2007. "Rational and Behavioral Perspectives on the Role of Annuities in Retirement Planning," NBER Working Papers 13537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2005. "Differential mortality, uncertain medical expenses, and the saving of elderly singles," Working Paper Series WP-05-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    6. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Spivak, Avia, 1981. "The Family as an Incomplete Annuities Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 372-391, April.
    7. Menahem E. Yaari, 1965. "Uncertain Lifetime, Life Insurance, and the Theory of the Consumer," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 32(2), pages 137-150.
    8. Brugiavini, Agar, 1993. "Uncertainty resolution and the timing of annuity purchases," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 31-62, January.
    9. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1971. "The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 561-574, September.
    10. Abel, Andrew B, 1986. "Capital Accumulation and Uncertain Lifetimes with Adverse Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1079-1097, September.
    11. Michael G. Palumbo, 1999. "Uncertain Medical Expenses and Precautionary Saving Near the End of the Life Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(2), pages 395-421.
    12. Mr. Jan Walliser, 1999. "Regulation of Withdrawals in Individual Account Systems," IMF Working Papers 1999/153, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Hippolyte d'Albis & Johanna Etner, 2018. "Illiquid life annuities," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 20(2), pages 277-297, April.
    2. Moshe A. Milevsky & Thomas S. Salisbury, 2013. "Optimal Retirement Tontines for the 21st Century: With Reference to Mortality Derivatives in 1693," Papers 1307.2824, arXiv.org.
    3. Thomas Davidoff, 2009. "Housing, Health, and Annuities," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 76(1), pages 31-52, March.
    4. Mathias Kifmann, 2010. "The Design of Pension Pay Out Options When the Health Status during Retirement Is Uncertain," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(1), pages 127-149, February.

    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. Oded Palmon & Avia Spivak, 2007. "Adverse selection and the market for annuities," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 32(1), pages 37-59, June.
    2. Peijnenburg, J.M.J. & Nijman, T.E. & Werker, B.J.M., 2010. "Optimal Annuitization with Incomplete Annuity Markets and Background Risk During Retirement," Other publications TiSEM 0b8e2130-a64a-48c1-97d6-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Steinorth, Petra, 2012. "The demand for enhanced annuities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 973-980.
    4. Cormac O'Dea & David Sturrock, 2019. "Survival pessimism and the demand for annuities," IFS Working Papers W19/02, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. Erin Cottle Hunt & Frank N. Caliendo, 2022. "Social security and risk sharing: A survey of four decades of economic analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 1591-1609, December.
    6. Milevsky, Moshe A. & Young, Virginia R., 2007. "Annuitization and asset allocation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 3138-3177, September.
    7. Bütler, Monika & Peijnenburg, Kim & Staubli, Stefan, 2017. "How much do means-tested benefits reduce the demand for annuities?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(4), pages 419-449, October.
    8. Yogo, Motohiro, 2016. "Portfolio choice in retirement: Health risk and the demand for annuities, housing, and risky assets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 17-34.
    9. Lambregts, Timo R. & Schut, Frederik T., 2020. "Displaced, disliked and misunderstood: A systematic review of the reasons for low uptake of long-term care insurance and life annuities," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    10. Hugo Benitez-Silva, 2000. "A Dynamic Model Of Labor Supply, Consumption/Saving, And Annuity Decisions Under Uncertainty," Computing in Economics and Finance 2000 128, Society for Computational Economics.
    11. Hugo Benítez-Silva, 2003. "The Annuity Puzzle Revisited," Working Papers wp055, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    12. Schreiber, Philipp & Weber, Martin, 2016. "Time inconsistent preferences and the annuitization decision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 37-55.
    13. Kaschützke, B. & Maurer, R., 2016. "Investing and Portfolio Allocation for Retirement," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 567-608, Elsevier.
    14. Pang, Gaobo & Warshawsky, Mark, 2010. "Optimizing the equity-bond-annuity portfolio in retirement: The impact of uncertain health expenses," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 198-209, February.
    15. Peijnenburg, Kim & Nijman, Theo & Werker, Bas J.M., 2016. "The annuity puzzle remains a puzzle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 18-35.
    16. Giuseppe Cappelletti & Giovanni Guazzarotti & Pietro Tommasino, 2011. "What determines annuity demand at retirement?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 805, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    17. Lee Lockwood, 2012. "Bequest Motives and the Annuity Puzzle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 226-243, April.
    18. Robert Gazzale & Julian Jamison & Alexander Karlan & Dean Karlan, 2013. "Ambiguous Solicitation: Ambiguous Prescription," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 1002-1011, January.
    19. Kam Ki Tang & Jie Zhang, 2007. "Morbidity, Mortality, Health Expenditures and Annuitization," CESifo Working Paper Series 2086, CESifo.
    20. James Poterba & Steven Venti & David Wise, 2011. "The Composition and Drawdown of Wealth in Retirement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 95-118, Fall.

    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:ces:ceswps:_2125. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.