What Makes Annuitization More Appealing?

We thank Christine Polek, Michael Puempel, and Gwendolyn Reynolds for excellent research assistance, and David John, Josh Rauh, Karl Scholz, Annette Vissing-Jorgenson, and participants at the Aspen Conference on Economic Decision Making, the NBER Jackson Hole Conference on State and Local Pensions, the ASSA annual meetings, the Bank of Israel Research Department, Columbia Business School, the RAND Behavioral Finance Forum, the Urban Institute, TIAA-CREF Institute research symposia, the University of Michigan and George Washington University for helpful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by the U.S. Social Security Administration through grants to the RAND / Dartmouth / Wharton Financial Literacy Center and the National Bureau of Economic Research as part of the SSA Retirement Research Consortium (grants FLR09010202-02 and #5 RRC08098400-04- 00), the TIAA-CREF Institute, and the National Institutes of Health (grants P01-AG005842, P30-AG034532, and R01-AG021650). The findings and conclusions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent the views of SSA, any agency of the Federal Government, or the NBER. The authors have, at various times in the last three years, been compensated to present academic research at events hosted by financial institutions that administer retirement savings plans and/or provide annuities. See the authors' websites for a complete list of outside activities.

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• November 27, 2012
• March 11, 2013