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On the Failure (Success) of the Markets for Longevity Risk Transfer
Author(s) -
MacMinn Richard,
Brockett Patrick
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of risk and insurance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1539-6975
pISSN - 0022-4367
DOI - 10.1111/jori.12205
Subject(s) - longevity risk , bond , hedge , life expectancy , pension , longevity , extant taxon , business , investment banking , annuity , actuarial science , moral hazard , economics , finance , life annuity , market economy , incentive , ecology , population , genetics , demography , evolutionary biology , sociology , biology
A BSTRACT Longevity risk is the chance that people will live longer than expected. That potential increase in life expectancy exposes insurers and pension funds to the risk of not having sufficient funds to pay a longer stream of annuity benefits than promised. Longevity bonds and forwards provide insurers and pension funds with financial market instruments designed to hedge the longevity risk that these organization face. The European Investment Bank and World Bank have both discussed longevity bond issues, but those issues have failed due to insufficient demand. Forward contracts have also been created, but that market remains dormant. The extant literature suggests that these failures may be due to design or pricing problems. In this article the analysis shows that the market failure is instead due to a moral hazard problem.