Converting retirement benefit into a life care annuity with graded benefits*

This paper deals with life care annuities, i.e. bundled products comprising a life annuity and long-term care insurance. It aims to assess the cost of converting retirement benefit into a life care annuity with graded benefits using a pre-existing public pay-as-you-go pension scheme. With this objective in mind, we present an actuarial method based on array calculus for valuing this type of life care annuity. The health dynamics of the annuitant rely on a reversible illness-death multistate framework. The paper contains a numerical example in which mortality and disability assumptions are based on data from the USA and Australia, although this should be viewed simply as an illustration. In addition, in order to check the coherence of these data, we compute life expectancy for both healthy and dependent persons, and then for dependent persons in each of the states of dependence. The effect of ruling out the recovery assumption on the annuity’s cost is also assessed. The analysis provides valuable insights into how much it would cost to introduce these annuities and enables us to make some policy recommendations to help ensure that this combined pension scheme has a good actuarial design.     

Can Government Intervention in Childcare be Justified?

Childcare is not like other goods and services. Its inherent nature creates unusual challenges for efficient delivery by the market, while its usage can have social as well as private consequences. Government involvement in childcare may therefore be justified to improve the efficiency of delivery or achieve social objectives, but its effectiveness will depend on whether policy measures can better address the challenges of childcare provision than the market. This article reviews the justification for the recent rapid development of childcare policy in the UK and considers the potential benefits and drawbacks of this growing government intervention.     

叶尔羌河平原绿洲土地生态安全预警演变与时空格局分析

[目的]探索叶尔羌河平原绿洲土地生态安全预警问题及其时空格局变化,旨在为叶尔羌河平原绿洲土地生态安全及可持续利用提供科学的参考依据。[方法]文章运用PSR模型构建预警指标体系,采用熵值法测算各指标权重,对2000—2016年叶尔羌河平原绿洲土地生态安全警情格局进行综合分析,并利用GIS技术分析其2000年、2005年、2010年和2016年土地生态安全空间格局变化,最后运用障碍度模型探索其障碍因子。[结果](1)2000—2016年叶尔羌河平原绿洲土地生态安全综合预警指数总体呈上升态势,生态预警状态由"较不安全"转为"临界安全",警度亦由"重警"变为"中警"。(2)从空间格局来看,空间上各县域土地生态安全水平差异明显,研究初期西部地区土地生态安全状态优于东部地区, 2016年呈现出中部高、东北—西南部低的态势。(3)近17年叶尔羌河平原绿洲各县域土地生态环境状况有所改善,安全状态经历了"极不安全—临界安全—较安全"的发展历程。(4)影响土地生态安全的主要障碍因子包括单位面积耕地农药负荷、人口密度、单位面积耕地化肥负荷、土地垦殖率、人口自然增长率和单位面积耕地地膜负荷等。[结论]研究期间叶尔羌河平原绿洲土地生态安全得到明显的提升与改善,并在良好的方向发展。     

Leisure,international retirement migration,and retirement adjustment: insights from the best exotic marigold hotel movies

ABSTRACT

International retirement migration (IRM) is a growing phenomenon linked to increased longevity, early retirement, and improved financial status. Encompassing both travel and leisure experiences, IRM is a topic relevant to both tourism and leisure studies. By analysing the fictional movie series The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) and The Second Best Marigold Hotel (2015) from psychological, gerontological, and sociological theoretical perspectives, this paper examines motivation, goal setting, continuity and change, and identity development in IRM experiences within tourism and leisure contexts. This paper (a) identified motivations for IRM as finance, romantic relationships, social relations, self-esteem, self-fulfilment, and social norms; (b) in turn, time perception and attitude influence IRM emigrants’ priority and emotional fulfilment; (c) innovation extricates IRM emigrants from role loss and facilitates role change; and (d) IRM emigrants experience various identity development processes. A conceptual framework for IRM is proposed that purports to explain the IRM experience process and indicates that such an understanding of IRM should incorporate psychological, gerontological, and sociological perspectives.     

Social Security and Old Age Unemployment Risk with Efficient Wage Bargaining

I analyze a life‐cycle economy with old age productivity risk where wages, employment, and severance payments are set through efficient bargaining between risk averse unions and risk neutral firms. Allocations with limited union membership are second‐best inefficient as they generate too little labor supply in young age, too much consumption before retirement, too little employment of older workers (early retirement), and too little insurance against old age unemployment. Providing public transfers to early retirees (disability benefits or early pensions) might help to increase the degree of risk sharing at the cost of lower old age employment. Depending on whether absolute risk aversion is increasing or decreasing in consumption, these policies might or might not produce efficiency gains at equilibrium.     

天然气管道在线预警与定位技术应用研究

本文通过对管道光纤预警工作原理、管道光纤预警系统组成等进行阐述,进而在一定程度上为天然气管道在线预警与定位提供参考依据。     

Hiring Older Employees: Do the Age Limits of Early Retirement and the Contribution Rates of Firms Matter?

We examine the effects of a Finnish pension reform on firms' incentives to hire older employees. The reform restricted the eligibility ages for early retirement and changed the size‐related contribution rates of firms. According to our theoretical model, the positive effect on the values of new hires extends to age groups younger than those directly affected by the reform, and the effects are strongest in the largest firms. These model predictions were confirmed in a difference‐in‐difference‐in‐differences analysis on the probability of the hiring of workers of different ages in firms of different sizes.     

LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN THE LONG RUN: JAPAN, 1600–1909

This article examines long-term labour productivity change in Japan from the early seventeenth century to the nineteenth century. We constructed sectoral labour force estimates based on the methodology presented in a previous study, who provided a sectoral GDP series covering the Tokugawa period. Our results show the industrial structure in the Tokugawa period remained relatively stable in comparison with the economy after the Meiji Restoration. Nevertheless, the estimates of sectoral labour productivity suggest expansion of the market economy in Tokugawa Japan influenced the development of industrialisation after the Meiji Restoration.     

Optimal Retirement with Increasing Longevity

We develop an optimizing life‐cycle model of retirement with perfect capital markets. We show that longer healthy life expectancy usually leads to later retirement, but with an elasticity less than unity. We calibrate our model using data from the US and find that, over the last century, the effect of rising incomes, which promote early retirement, has dominated the effect of rising lifespans. Our model predicts continuing declines in the optimal retirement age, despite rising life expectancy, provided the rate of real wage growth remains as high as in the last century.