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Optimal Portfolio Choice with Health-contingent Income Products: The Value of Life Care Annuities

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Shang Wu, Hazel Bateman and Ralph Stevens

Whereas there is ample evidence that life-contingent income products (life annuities) have the potential to improve individual welfare, combining them with health-contingent income products (resulting in so-called life care annuities) would serve to further increase welfare for individuals who are exposed to uncertain out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure later in life.

We develop a life-cycle model of annuitization, consumption, and investment decisions for a single retired individual who faces stochastic capital market returns, uncertain health status, differential mortality risks, and uncertain out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure with cost of dying. 

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