Luxury bequests impart systematic effects of age to an investor's optimal allocation: the expected percentage allocation to equities rises throughout retirement. When bequests are luxuries the marginal utility of bequests declines more slowly than the marginal utility of consumption. This is...

The retirement risk zone represents a fragile period in the financial life cycle of people in defined-contributions superannuation. It primarily affects people of middle means. Sequencing risk has been described as an independent risk but it has largely been a consequence of the dominant asset...

We survey the long-term derivative instruments (warrants) offered by Australian institutions to elderly Australian investors. Our focus is on products other than plain-vanilla life annuities. There are currently four active products. They incorporate a strike price which is either constant or...

Recent OECD data offer limited support for the proposition that our company tax rate could be cut substantially with little or no loss of tax revenue. Treasury‐type analysis suggests otherwise: our headline rate could be cut to 20 per cent if abolishing dividend imputation were used to finance...

After declining worldwide since the late 1080s, defined benefits plans will not recover their previous dominance in Australia because they can only be offered by large and stable organisations. Since 1992, Australia has had compulsory superannuation that is mostly privately managed in addition,...