Ambiguous life expectancy and the demand for annuities - HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société
Article Dans Une Revue Theory and Decision Année : 2018

Ambiguous life expectancy and the demand for annuities

Résumé

In this paper, ambiguity aversion to uncertain survival probabilities is introduced in a static life-cycle model with a bequest motive to study the optimal demand for annuities. Provided that annuities’ return is sufficiently large, and notably when it is fair, positive annuitization is known to be the optimal strategy of ambiguity neutral individuals. Conversely, we show that the demand for annuities decreases with ambiguity aversion and that there exists a finite degree of aversion above which the demand is non-positive: the optimal strategy is then to either sell annuities short or to hold zero annuities if the former option is not available. To conclude, ambiguity aversion appears to be a relevant candidate for explaining the annuity puzzle.

Dates et versions

halshs-02072559 , version 1 (19-03-2019)

Identifiants

Citer

Hippolyte d'Albis, Emmanuel Thibault. Ambiguous life expectancy and the demand for annuities. Theory and Decision, 2018, 85 (3-4), pp.303-319. ⟨10.1007/s11238-018-9658-8⟩. ⟨halshs-02072559⟩
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