The multidisciplinary Pension, Retirement and Ageing Seminar Series is co-hosted by CEPAR and the School of Risk & Actuarial Studies, UNSW Business School with the aim of encouraging interaction between academic researchers from a broad range of disciplines as well as from industry and government. Seminars take place fortnightly, usually on a Monday around noon (UTC+10, Australian Eastern Time) and provide an excellent opportunity to network with pensions, ageing and retirement experts from Australia and overseas.
Call for speakers to present their research:
Topics that interest our audience include: issues associated with pensions, retirement and/or ageing from a broad range of disciplines including economics, finance, actuarial studies, law, psychology, public health etc.
Speakers: Academics and research students as well as researchers in industry and government are welcome to submit expressions of interest
Seminar series schedule: During UNSW semesters every second Monday from the end of February to end of May; and then end of August to end of November
Presentation mode: We strongly encourage you to present and participate 'in person'. However, the seminars will be delivered in hybrid-mode and we will support presentation online for international speakers and others unable to travel to UNSW Sydney.
Seminar time: Seminars are usually held from 12-1 pm, followed by 1-1:30 pm for lunch and discussion with on-site participants (Sydney Time). We can adjust these times for the convenience of speakers from different time zones. Lunch boxes will be provided to participants in the seminar room.
Please contact Dr Hanlin Lou if you are interested in presenting, participating or would like to be added to the Pensions, Retirement and Ageing Seminar Series mailing list.
View past Pensions, Retirement and Ageing Seminar Series:
2024 Schedule
Title: Longevity Beliefs Elicitation: Full Distributions and Visual Support
Date: 8 April 2024
Time: 12.00-1.00 pm
Location: Room 250, G14 (Robert Webster Building) & Teams
Speaker: Andre Lot
Affiliation: University of Sydney
Abstract: We investigate subjective longevity beliefs in a large sample of the Swiss adult population, using the Click-and-Drag interface, a tool to empower subjects to intuitively submit full belief distributions. We collect data on longevity beliefs on archetypes, on a series of different health scenarios, and for themselves. We implement both a CDF elicitation task - in line with most of the literature - and a PDF version for the same task. Our results show that participants estimates elicited with a PDF interface were more accurate than those using the CDF interface. We show additionally that providing participants with a visual support in the form of an average longevity distribution, substantially helps to improve accuracy and debias estimates. Moreover providing visual aid right away clearly outperformed helping after a first unguided estimation. Our findings show the promise of eliciting full distributions, reveal a surprising outperforming of the PDF over the CDF visualisation, and show that providing visual guidance is a powerful tool for improving longevity predictions.
Title: Postcode-Level Reverse Mortgages: Longevity Risks, House Price Risks, and Welfare Gain
Date: 25 March 2024
Time: 12.00-1.00 pm
Location: Room 250, G14 (Robert Webster Building) & Teams
Speaker: Lingfeng Lyu
Affiliation: UNSW Sydney, CEPAR
Abstract: This paper evaluates the Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS) versus downsizing for older Australians, factoring in elements such as means tests, health expenditures, taxes, and home maintenance. It builds on a utility approach, considering region-specific house prices and longevity risks. Findings reveal that HEAS enhances healthy aging for healthy and mildly disabled retirees more than downsizing. This scheme benefits cash-poor but asset-rich retirees who have lower bequest motives, derive higher satisfaction from spacious homes, and prioritise long-term gratification. However, spatial disparities in housing prices and life expectancy decrease the uptake of HEAS, offering new perspectives on housing decisions among seniors in Australia.
Title: Unintended effects of the pandemic on health insurance lapse: the role of narrow framing
Date: 11 March 2024
Time: 12.00-1.00 pm
Location: Zoom
Speaker: Zining Liu
Affiliation: Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE)
Abstract: Using individual health insurance contract data, we leverage the pandemic as a natural experiment to examine the causal effects of the pandemic on insurance purchase and lapse behaviors. By applying regression discontinuity design in time, our findings indicate that individuals who made insurance purchase decisions during the pandemic shock experienced an increase in the insurance lapse rate by 1.9 percentage points due to liquidity constraints. Surprisingly, we also found that individuals were well-informed about the liquidity constraint and health risks during the pandemic shock, which should have had opposite effects on insurance coverage. Our results suggest that individuals are narrow framing when making insurance purchase decisions and only consider the health risk, neglecting the liquidity constraint in the long run. This ultimately led to a higher insurance lapse rate during the pandemic shock, highlighting the need for a combination of traditional insurance economics and behavioral economics to explain actual insurance purchase behaviors and then improve individuals' financial well-being during the pandemic.
Title: From Adam Smith to Artificial Intelligence: An Experimental Exploration of Emotion in Humanomics
Date: 26 Feb 2024
Time: 12.00-1.00 pm
Location: Room 250, G14 (Robert Webster Building) & Teams
Speaker: Mike Zhiren Wu
Affiliation: Monash University
Abstract: This study examines whether individuals can effectively express their emotions or “fellow-feelings” to a machine, an impartial observer, or individuals who have caused them harm and investigates the effect of these emotional expressions on behavior. Our findings indicate that the impartial observer is the most preferred outlet for emotional expression, with neither the machine nor the offending party being able to adequately fulfill this role. Negative emotions are more commonly expressed to the impartial observer and machine, whereas positive emotions are more often directed toward the offending party. Additionally, our findings indicate that emotional expression cannot replace costly punishment and that communication channels do not affect the behavior of the offending party. By exploring the nuanced ways emotions are conveyed, this study offers valuable insights into the evolving discourse on the impact of emotions on human-AI interactions.
Please contact cepar@unsw.edu.au if you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation plan.