Description: This essay discusses the long overdue effciencies that would improve the quality of healthcare in the United States.

Description: Discussant comments for the 2009 Housing Wealth monograph paper, “History of Mortgage Finance With an Emphasis on Mortgage Insurance.” The paper presents the history of mortgage guarantee insurance in the US beginning briefly with the history of banks and banking regulation and ending with implications for the future. The discussant finds the paper clearly written and that it would make a useful reference based on a reading of a preliminary draft.

Description: Chapter 4 states that greater male mortality is almost universal throughout the world, although the difference between male and female mortality varies from country to country and region to region. From Why Men Die Younger: Causes of Mortality Differences by Sex, M-LI01-1.

Description: This paper attempts to synthesize the evidence supporting and refuting the hypotheses for the sex mortality differential. From Why Men Die Younger: Causes of Mortality Differences by Sex: Abstract, M-LI01-1.

Description: This paper examines the impact at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of the introduction of specialty networks, shift to mail-order prescriptions, shifts to generic prescriptions, and product mix shifts to overall pharmacy trend. From Prescription Drugs Monograph, M-HB04-1.

Description: A new approach to retirement is needed which allows a transition period from full work to full retirement, allowing people to continue working well past the traditional retirement age. This article discusses the possibility that employees will survive beyond their retirement funds and proposes a new retirement perspective that retirement progams should treat longevity as an insurable event and different strategies for this longevity risk.

Description: This paper outlines findings from judgement and decision making and behavioral economics literature that focus on elements of the retirement savings decision. From the 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, March 2011.

Description: The author's conclusion is that retirees focus should not be investment strategy or withdrawal rate but cash flow. From the 2011 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, March 2011.

Description: The paper gives an overview of the data that are available and discusses the problems encountered in estimating mortality rates at old ages in the UK. It describes some of the methodologies used to construct mortality rates at advanced ages for official life tables and recent work undertaken by the UK Government Actuary’s Department to construct a database of historical mortality rates for the United Kingdom going back to 1961. Mortality tables for ages 85 and above are provided for years 1961 - 2000 by gender. Finally, possible methods for projecting mortality at advanced ages are discussed.