264 research outputs found
Portfolio decisions on life annuities and financial assets with longevity and income uncertainty
No full textThere are two stylised facts, namely weak demand for life-annuities and flat age-wealth profile that contradict the life-cycle hypothesis. In this paper we design a theoretical framework, which combines plausible arguments, which have been put forward in the literature to reconcile theory with empirical evidence. Besides the existence of an annuity market and of a public pension system we assume risk-averse individuals who are uncertain about lifetime and disposable income and who have preferences for leaving bequests. It is shown that this framework can contribute to explain the observed portfolio decision in favour of financial assets relatively to annuities.savings; life annuities; bequests; uncertain lifetime; uncertain income; social security
Adverse Selection with individual- and joint-life annuities
No full textThis paper includes couples on the demand side and analyses their implications on the problem of adverse selection in the annuity market. First, we examine the pooling equilibrium for individual-life annuities and show that in the presence of couples the rate of return on individuallife annuities is lower in case that couples do not have the advantage of joint consumption of "family public goods" as well as in case of a logarithmic utility function. Second, we examine the market for joint-life annuities. Due to their higher chance that only one partner survives to the retirement, couples with short-lived partners put more weight on the survivor benefit than couples with at least one longer-lived partner. This fact is used by annuity companies to separate couples according to their partners' life-expectancies. Hence, we find that only a separating equilibrium may exist. These results are obtained in a framework where couples are mandated to buy joint-life annuities and only single persons buy individual-life annuities. When relaxing this assumption by allowing couples to choose between individual- and joint-life annuities, we find that in equilibrium couples with long-lived partners buy individual-life annuities, while couples with short-lived partners buy joint-life annuities. However, couples with one long-lived and one short-lived partner may decide for either type of annuities, depending on the exogenous parameters. Accordingly, we identify two different types of equilibria.annuity market; uncertain lifetime; adverse selection; equilibrium
Adverse selection in the annuity market with sequential and simultaneous insurance demand
No full textThis paper investigates the effect of adverse selection on the private annuity market in a model with two periods of retirement. In order to introduce the existence of limited-time pension insurance, we assume that for each period of retirement separate contracts can be purchased. Demand for the two periods can be decided either sequentially or simultaneously. We show that different risk-groups prefer different types of contracts, and that only the sequential contracts, which are favourable for the long-living individuals, represent an equilibrium.annuity markets; adverse selection; uncertain lifetimes; equilibrium
Adverse Selection in the Annuity Market with Sequential and Simultaneous Insurance Demand
No full textThis paper investigates the effect of adverse selection on the private annuity market in a model with two periods of retirement. In order to introduce the existence of limited-time pension insurance, we assume that for each period of retirement separate contracts can be purchased. Demand for the two periods can be decided either sequentially or simultaneously. We show that different risk-groups prefer different types of contracts, and that only the sequential contracts, which are favourable for the long-living individuals, represent an equilibrium.annuity markets, adverse selection, uncertain lifetimes, equilibrium
Kinderarmut - (k)ein Thema für die Grundschule?
No full textMiller S. Kinderarmut - (k)ein Thema für die Grundschule? In: Kaiser A, Pech D, eds. Basiswissen Sachunterricht. Band 6. Hohengehren: Schneider Verlag; 2004: 137-144
Tax incentives for private life annuities and the social security reform: Effects on consumption and on adverse selection
No full textIn this paper we analyse several measures which are typically included in a social security reform: a cut in the social security benefits, an increase in the social security tax and tax incentives for the purchase of private life annuities, which have recently become quite popular at the political level. In a two-period model with uncertainty about life-expectancy, it is shown that for a given annuity price tax incentives for life annuities increases consumption expenditures in old-age, while the opposite occurs by a cut in the social security benefits and by an increase of the social security tax. The main result is that a tax incentive for life annuities and a cut in the social security benefits alleviate adverse selection in the private annuity market, while an increase in the social security tax exacerbates adverse selection.annuity market; uncertain lifetime; adverse selection; tax incentives; social security
Optimum taxation of inheritances
No full textWe incorporate the fact that inheritances create a second distinguishing characteristic of individuals, in addition to earning abilities, into an optimum income taxation model with bequests motivated by joy of giving. We show that a tax on inheritances and a uniform tax on all expenditures including bequests are equivalent and that either is desirable, according to an intertemporal social objective, if on average high-able individuals have larger inherited endowments than low-able. We demonstrate that such a situation results as the outcome of a process with stochastic transition of abilities over generations, if all descendants are more probable to have their parent’s ability rank than any other.inheritance tax
Festschrift für Astrid Kaiser
No full textBecher A, Miller S, Oldenburg I, Pech D, Schomaker C, eds. Kommunikativer Sachunterricht. Facetten der Entwicklung. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren; 2013
Indigenous Lands in a Developing Region: A Historical Ethnogeography of the Pech Indians of Eastern Honduras, With Emphasis on Recent Settlement and Land Use Changes.
No full textSince before Spanish Contact, the Pech Indians have occupied a large portion of northeastern Honduras. Like other native American populations, they have suffered significant territorial reductions and cultural alterations at the hands of European colonists and modern ladino immigrants. Utilizing the methodologies of cultural geography, ethnohistory, and ethnogeography, the Pech, formerly known as the Paya, are scrutinized to illustrate the process by which indigenous peoples are reduced and incorporated into a developing national setting. Part One examines the scholarly record on the ethnohistory of the Pech and their neighbors to delimit their habitats and to document Pech incorporation into the Spanish colonial realm. Part Two describes their post-Independence settlement and land use patterns, and explains the most recent changes. The pivotal role of Padre Manuel Subirana in establishing the original Pech land grants is highlighted, and early Honduran censuses and travelers\u27 accounts by Karl Sapper and Eduard Conzemius are employed to reconstruct settlement locations. From fieldwork in 1991-2, the author identified the Pech\u27 current three-fold use and characterization of the local habitat: montana, serrania, and vega. The eastward expansion of Honduran (ladino) population and the accompanying economic activities that forged into the Pech lands of eastern Olancho during the last three decades is proposed as the mechanism that recently altered the settlement and land tenure of the Pech. National and local migration studies, mapped intensively, indicate clearly the movement of the ladino frontier eastward to overwhelm the lands of the Pech. Road improvements triggered alterations of Pech lands and their attempts to reconstruct their land tenure system. Today, of the approximately 1,900 Pech, about 90 percent occupy a much-reduced bi-nodal core region in two upland valleys in the municipios of Dulce Nombre de Culmi and San Esteban. eastern Olancho. A few Pech also live in outlier lowland aseas at Silin (near Trujillo) and at Las Marias on the Rio Platano
A comparison of Landau-Ginzburg models for odd-dimensional Quadrics
No full textIn [Rie08], the second author defined a Landau-Ginzburg model for homogeneous spaces G/P, as a regular function on an affine subvariety of the Langlands dual group. In this paper, we reformulate this LG model (X^, W_t) in the case of the odd-dimensional quadric, as a rational function on a Langlands dual projective space, in the spirit of work by R. Marsh and the second author for type A Grassmannians and by both authors for Lagrangian Grassmannians. We also compare this LG model with the one obtained independently by Gorbounov and Smirnov, and we use this comparison to deduce part of a conjecture of the second author for odd-dimensional quadrics
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