Variable annuities have been one of the most rapidly growing financial products of the last two decades. Between 1996 and 2004, nominal sales of variable annuities in the U.S. more than doubled, from $51 billion to $130 billion. Variable annuities now account for approximately nearly two thirds...

Variable annuities have been one of the most rapidly growing financial products of the last two decades. Between 1996 and 2004, nominal sales of variable annuities in the U.S. more than doubled, from $51 billion to $130 billion. Variable annuities now account for approximately nearly two thirds...

We provide evidence that individuals optimize imperfectly when making annuity decisions, and this result is not driven by loss aversion. Life annuities are more attractive when presented in a consumption frame than in an investment frame. Highlighting the purchase price in the consumption frame...

This paper evaluates the extent of adverse selection in life insurance and annuities in international markets, for both group and individual products. We also compare results with prior analyses of adverse selection in international annuity markets, focusing on the US, the UK, and Japan. Our...

This paper summarizes the development of private annuity markets in the United States. Annuities constituted a small share of the U.S. insurance market until the 1930s, when two developments contributed to their growth. First, concerns about the stability of the financial system drove investors...

Variable annuities have been one of the most rapidly growing financial products of the last two decades. Between 1996 and 2004, nominal sales of variable annuities in the U.S. more than doubled, from $51 billion to $130 billion. Variable annuities now account for approximately nearly two thirds...

In this paper, we argue that actuarial valuation of annuity benefit streams is theoretically inconsistent with the assumption of pure lifecycle motives. Instead, we show that the simple discounted value of future benefits (ignoring the possibility of death) is often a good approximation to the...

This paper presents new information on the expected present discounted value of payouts on individual life annuities. The annuity we examine is the single premium immediate life annuity, an insurance product that pays out a nominal level sum as long as the covered person lives, in exchange for...

This essay surveys the literature on directed/competitive search, covering theory and applications in, e.g., labor, housing and monetary economics. These models share features with traditional search theory, yet differ in important ways. They share features with general equilibrium theory, but...

We study a search and bargaining model of an asset market, where investors' heterogeneous valuations for the asset are drawn from an arbitrary distribution. Our solution technique makes the model fully tractable and allows us to provide a full characterization of the unique equilibrium, in...