TY  - JOUR
AU  - Brown,Jeffrey R.
AU  - Mitchell,Olivia S.
AU  - Poterba,James M.
TI  - Mortality Risk, Inflation Risk, and Annuity Products
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7812
PY  - 2000
Y2  - July 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7812
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7812.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jeffrey R. Brown
Department of Finance
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
515 East Gregory Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Tel: 217/333-3322
E-Mail: brownjr@illinois.edu

Olivia S. Mitchell
University of Pennsylvania
Wharton School
3620 Locust Walk, St 3000 SH-DH
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6302
Tel: 215-898-0424
Fax: 215/898-0310
E-Mail: mitchelo@wharton.upenn.edu

James M. Poterba
Department of Economics
MIT, E52-350
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-6673
Fax: 617/258-7804
E-Mail: poterba@nber.org
AB  - As growing numbers of retirees reach retirement age with substantial balances in self-directed retirement plans, annuities are likely to become increasingly important instruments for drawing down retirement savings.  This study explores recent trends in the pricing of single-premium annuity products in the United States. Virtually all of the annuity products currently available in the United States offer fixed nominal payouts, rather than an inflation-linked payout stream.  After describing the  money's worth' of the various types of nominal annuity products, this study considers the extent to which existing U.S. private annuity markets provide retirees with inflation-protected retirement income flows.  Although there is effectively no market yet for inflation-indexed annuities in the United States, such products are available in other countries.  The paper concludes by summarizing recent data on the pricing of both nominal and inflation-linked annuities in the United Kingdom and several other nations.
ER  -