This paper shows how lifelong survival-contingent payouts can enhance investor wellbeing in the context of a portfolio choice model which integrates uninsurable labor income and asymmetric mortality expectations. Our model generates optimal asset location patterns indicating how much to hold in liquid versus illiquid survival-contingent payouts over the lifetime, and also asset allocation paths, showing how to invest in stocks versus bonds. We confirm that the investor will gradually move money out of her liquid saving into survival-contingent assets to retirement and beyond, thereby enhancing her welfare by as much as 50 percent. The results are also robust to the introduction of uninsurable consumption shocks in housing expenses, income flows during the worklife and retirement, sudden changes in health status, and medical expenses.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
14055.
Length: Date of creation: Jun 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14055
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Find related papers by JEL classification: G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Pension Funds; Other Private Financial Institutions H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Private Pensions
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