Most individual life insurance policies lapse, with lapsers cross-subsidizing non-lapsers. We show that policies and lapse patterns predicted by standard rational expectations models are the opposite of those observed empirically. We propose two behavioral models consistent with the evidence: (i) consumers forget to pay premiums and (ii) consumers understate future liquidity needs. We conduct two surveys with a large insurer. New buyers believe that their own lapse probabilities are small compared to the insurer’s actual experience. For recent lapsers, forgetfulness accounts for 37.8 percent of lapses while unexpected liquidity accounts for 15.4 percent.

The conventional wisdom since Yaari (1965) is that households without a bequest motive should fully annuitize their investments. Numerous frictions do not break this sharp result. We modify the Yaari framework by allowing a household's mortality risk itself to be stochastic due to health shocks. A lifetime annuity still helps to hedge longevity risk. But the annuity's remaining present value is correlated with medical costs, such as those for nursing home care, thereby reducing annuity demand, even without ad-hoc liquidity constraints. We find that most households should not hold a positive level of annuities, and many should hold negative amounts.

This paper uses a new, large-scale, dynamic life-cycle simulation model to compare the welfare and macroeconomic effects of transitions to five fundamental alternatives to the U.S. federal income tax, including a proportional consumption tax and a flat tax. The model incorporates intragenerational heterogeneity and a detailed specification of alternative tax systems. Simulation results project significant long-run increases in output for some reforms. For other reforms, namely those that seek to insulate the poor and initial older generations from adverse welfare changes, long-run output gains are modest.