Publications Database
Welcome to the new Schulich Peer-Reviewed Publication Database!
The database is currently in beta-testing and will be updated with more features as time goes on. In the meantime, stakeholders are free to explore our faculty’s numerous works. The left-hand panel affords the ability to search by the following:
- Faculty Member’s Name;
- Area of Expertise;
- Whether the Publication is Open-Access (free for public download);
- Journal Name; and
- Date Range.
At present, the database covers publications from 2012 to 2020, but will extend further back in the future. In addition to listing publications, the database includes two types of impact metrics: Altmetrics and Plum. The database will be updated annually with most recent publications from our faculty.
If you have any questions or input, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Search Results
Milevsky, M. (2020). "Swimming with Wealthy Sharks: Longevity, Volatility and the Value of Risk Pooling", Journal of Pension Finance and Economics , 19(2), 217-246.
Abstract
Who values life annuities more? Is it the healthy retiree who expects to live long and might become a centenarian, or is the unhealthy retiree with a short life expectancy more likely to appreciate the pooling of longevity risk? What if the unhealthy retiree is pooled with someone who is much healthier and forced to pay an implicit loading? To answer these and related questions this paper examines the empirical conditions under which retirees benefit (or may not) from longevity risk pooling by linking the economics of annuity equivalent wealth to actuarially models of aging. I focus attention on the Compensation Law of Mortality which implies that individuals with higher relative mortality (e.g., lower income) age more slowly and experience greater longevity uncertainty. Ergo, they place higher utility value on the annuity. The impetus for this research today is the increasing evidence on the growing disparity in longevity expectations between rich and poor.Milevsky, M. (2020). "Calibrating Gompertz in Reverse: What is Your Longevity-Risk-Adjusted Global Age?", Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 92, 147-161.
Abstract
This paper develops a computational framework for inverting Gompertz–Makeham mortality hazard rates, consistent with compensation laws of mortality for heterogeneous populations, to define a longevity-risk-adjusted global (L-RaG) age. To illustrate its salience and possible applications, the paper calibrates and presents L-RaG values using country data from the Human Mortality Database (HMD). Among other things, the author demonstrates that when properly benchmarked, the longevity-risk-adjusted global age of a 55-year-old Swedish male is 48, whereas a 55-year-old Russian male is closer in age to 67. The paper also discusses the connection between the proposed L-RaG age and the related concept of Biological age, from the medical and gerontology literature. Practically speaking, in a world of growing mortality heterogeneity, the L-RaG age could be used for pension and retirement policy. In the language of behavioral finance and economics, a salient metric that adjusts chronological age for longevity risk might help capture the public’s attention, educate them about lifetime uncertainty and induce many of them to take action — such as working longer and/or retiring later.Graham, C. (2014). "The Calculation of Age", Organization Studies, 35(11), 1627-1653.
Abstract
This article explores the role of calculative technologies, such as taxation, accounting and actuarial practices, in constructing ‘age’ in contemporary society. It argues that retirement income programs built on these technologies attempt to construct specific relations not just between the individual and other generations, but between the individual and herself at other stages of life. Retracing the series of Canadian attempts to secure income for the elderly over the course of the 20th century, the paper shows how calculative technologies have been used to connect responsibility for the elderly to the political rationalities of the day. This genealogy allows us to recognize how the present Canadian retirement income system, with its public and private programs addressing different subsets of the population, is contingent on neoliberal rationalities of governance. These demand the alignment of the individual with the goals of the capital markets, and seek to achieve this through a distributed agency that encourages the investment of individual savings in retirement income products. The paper argues that this distributed agency is perpetually incomplete, and that uncertainty is necessary in order that the individual be constantly remade as an investor.Milevsky, M. (2014). "Rethinking RRIF Withdrawals: New Rates for New Realities", Canadian Tax Journal, 62(4), 971-983.
Abstract
This paper employs a micro-economic framework to examine the Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) required withdrawal schedule in the context of current interest rates and longevity projections. It argues that today’s demographic and economic realities require that the schedule be revised to remain justifiable and fair. The methodology employed in this paper differs from other policy-based (or probabilistic) arguments. Namely, the paper compares the legislated withdrawal schedule with an optimal withdrawal schedule in a consumption-smoothing lifecycle model (LCM) for a longevity risk-averse retiree. This paper argues that while the LCM might be able to justify the RRIF withdrawal rates in place during the late 1980s - which was a period with higher interest rates and lower longevity - a quarter of a century later the schedule has become outdated.Graham, C. (2012). "The Subject of Retirement", Foucault Studies, No. 13 (May), 25-39.