We exploit the fact that Israeli pension insurance policies do not take health conditions or smoking status into account in annuity pricing to investigate the potential effect of being a smoker on retirement payout choices. Contrary to the idea that smokers have higher discount rates (and thus should prefer the lump sum option), and even though the insurance pricing mechanism means that smokers would be offered the same annuity as nonsmokers (all else equal), we find that smokers do not prefer the lump sum option. We offer and test several potential explanations for our findings: illusions regarding life expectancy, self-control, and advantageous selection.
The need to ensure that people have adequate savings for retirement has prompted debate among regulators and academics. Certain countries have implemented or are considering implementing mandatory minimum annuity laws (e.g., Singapore and Israel), whereas others have repealed or are considering repealing such legislation (e.g., the U.K.). We investigate the introduction as well as the repeal of a regulatory change—specifically, a mandatory minimum annuity rule—using a laboratory experiment and two surveys. Our results indicate that imposing a mandatory minimum may create an anchoring effect to the threshold level. Furthermore, our results suggest that the mandatory requirement may have unintended consequences: Such laws may fail to provide an increase in the demand for annuities and may even reduce it for certain individuals. The outcome is sensitive to the relation between the level of the mandatory minimum and anticipated consumption (i.e., future financial need). Moreover, we provide novel evidence about the consequences of a repeal of mandatory minimum annuity laws and suggest that it may not restore the demand for annuities to the pre-law level.