THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR MANAGING INVESTMENTS

Abstract Stress and distress are unavoidable aspects of dealing with the vagaries of financial markets and financial advisers. The purpose of this paper is to try to reduce the discomfort in dealing with investment advisers, and to make the journey up and down the financial mountain a little less stressful and more satisfying. The commandments deal with defining investment policies precisely, diversifying asset classes, choosing a consistent benchmark for investment policies, structuring precisely the asset allocation process, defining risk and risk management procedures, monitoring the portfolio carefully, matching the allocation and investment horizons, being active or passive according to investment policies, being agnostic about model forecasts and being aware that, while buy low and sell high is a truism, investors and financial advisers are only human and therefore make mistakes.     

DETAILED ESTIMATION OF WORKLIFE EXPECTANCY FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL: ACCOUNTING FOR MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

Abstract Measuring an individual's human capital at a point in time as the present actuarial value of expected net lifetime earnings has a lengthy history. Calculating such measures requires accurate estimates of worklife expectancy. Here, worklife estimates for men and women in the USA categorized by educational attainment, race, marital status, parental status and current labour force status are presented. Race has a much larger impact on the worklife expectancy of men than women. Education is associated with larger worklife differentials for women. The association between marriage and worklife expectancy is significant, but of opposite sign, for men and women: married women (men) have a lower (higher) worklife expectancy than single women (men). Parenthood is associated with a reduction in the worklife expectancy of women; the association is smaller and varies from positive for some education/marital status groups to negative for others for men.