Accordi ng to standard economic models, a risk-averse consumer who does not know how long he will live should place a high value on life annuities that provide guaranteed income for life. Yet numerous studies show that few consumers voluntarily annuitize their retirement savings. Rather than attempting to rationalize the lack of annuity demand, this paper explores the idea that aversion to annu...

This paper evaluates the extent of adverse selection in life insurance and annuities in international markets. We examine the extent of adverse selection in group and individual life insurance. In addition we also compare results with prior analyses of adverse selection in international annuity markets, focusing on the US, UK and Japan. Our results may be used to assess the extent to which life...

A previously unknown pricing anomaly existed for a few years in the late 1840s in the British government bond market, in which the larger and more liquid of two very large bonds was underpriced. None of the published mechanisms explains this phenomenon. It may be related to another pricing anomaly that existed for much of the 19th century in which terminable annuities were significantly underpr...

Single Premium Deferred Annuities (SPDAs) are investment vehicles, o ered to investors by insurance companies as a means of providing income past their retirement age. They are mirror images of insurance policies. However, the propensity of individuals to shift part, or all, of their investment into di erent annuities creates substantial uncertainties for the insurance company. In this paper we...