There is a looming retirement crisis, as individuals are increasingly being asked to take responsibility for their own retirement planning and a majority of these individuals are financially unsophisticated. They cannot perform basic compounding calculations and do not understand the impact of...

The move to defined contribution plans has transferred risk to individuals who are least capable of bearing such risk and requires them to make complex decisions for which they are not prepared. Accumulation (investments) and decumulation (annuity purchase) decisions are complex, costly, often...

There is a looming retirement crisis globally with the three pillars of retirement threatened because of insufficient funding, improper investment decisions, and transferring risk to individuals who are least capable of bearing such risk. This paper argues that the introduction of a unique...

There is an annuity puzzle in that despite the welfare gains to individuals and society from consumers purchasing annuities, the actual allocation to these instruments by individuals is very low. Many explanations have been provided including adverse selection, complexity and inflexibility of...

There is a growing retirement crisis and most of the focus has been on the fact that individuals are not saving enough for retirement, may not have access to pension schemes, or are financially illiterate. However, the bigger issue might be that the assets/financial products available to...

A commonly-accepted retirement goal for a healthy pension is for it to sustain the relatively higher standard-of-living of the latter part of one’s working life throughout retirement. A recent innovation implemented by Brazil in January 2023 might provide a solution to the pension challenges...

At a 2019 retirement security conference in Brazil, one of the authors proposed that Brazil introduce a low-cost, low-risk, simple and liquid bond innovation: “SeLFIES”—Standard of Living indexed, Forward-starting, Income-only Securities. SeLFIES would serve as the relative safe asset for...

At a 2019 retirement security conference in Brazil, one of the authors proposed that Brazil introduce a low-cost, low-risk, simple and liquid bond innovation: “SeLFIES”— Standard of Living indexed, Forward-starting, Income-only Securities. SeLFIES would serve as the relative safe asset for...

At a 2019 retirement security conference in Brazil, one of the authors proposed that Brazil introduce a low-cost, low-risk, simple and liquid bond innovation: “SeLFIES”—Standard of Living indexed, Forward-starting, Income-only Securities. SeLFIES would serve as the relative safe asset for...

There is an annuity puzzle in that the actual allocation by individuals to annuities is low. Longevity bonds, to hedge overall economy-wide mortality risk, have been proposed, but these bonds have challenges and the proponents have not shown how governments are hedged. This paper recommends that...