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The relative merits of different parametric models for making life expectancy and annuity value predictions at both pensioner and adult ages are investigated. This study builds on current published research and considers recent model enhancements and the extent to which these enhancements address the deficiencies that have been identified of some of the models. The England & Wales male mortality experience is used to conduct detailed comparisons at pensioner ages, having first established a common basis for comparison across all models. The model comparison is then extended to include the England & Wales female experience and both the male and female USA mortality experiences over a wider age range, encompassing also the working ages.

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractIn defined contribution pension schemes, the financial risk is borne by the member. Financial risk occurs both during the accumulation phase (investment risk) and at retirement, when the annuity is bought (annuity risk). The annuity risk faced by the member can be reduced through the "income drawdown option": the retiree is allowed to choose when to convert the final capital into pension within a certain period of time after retirement. In some countries, there is a limiting age when annuitization becomes compulsory (in UK this age is 75). In the interim, the member can withdraw periodic amounts of money to provide for daily life, within certain limits imposed by the scheme's rules (or by law).In this paper, we investigate the income drawdown option and define a stochastic optimal control problem, looking for optimal investment strategies to be adopted after retirement, when allowing for periodic fixed withdrawals from the fund. The risk attitude of the member is also considered, by changing a parameter in the disutility function chosen. We find that there is a natural target level of the fund, interpretable as a safety level, which can never be exceeded when optimal control is used.Numerical examples are presented in order to analyse various indices -relevant to the pensioner -when the optimal investment allocation is adopted. These indices include, for example, the risk of outliving the assets before annuitization occurs (risk of ruin), the average time of ruin, the probability of reaching a certain pension target (that is greater than or equal to the pension that the member could buy immediately on retirement), the final outcome that can be reached (distribution of annuity that can be bought at limit age), and how the risk attitude of the member affects the key performance measures mentioned above.Keywords: income drawdown option, stochastic optimal control, decumulation phase, immediate annuitization.JEL classification: C61, G11, J26.We gratefully acknowledge the interesting observations made by the participants of the 7 th IME Congress, Lyon, and of the 13 th AFIR Colloquium, Maastricht. A special thanks goes to Andrew Cairns, Bjarne Højgaard and an anonymous referee, for their valuable and useful comments.

The paper presents a reinterpretation of the model underpinning the Lee-Carter methodology for forecasting mortality (and other vital) rates. A parallel methodology based on generalized linear modelling is introduced. The use of residual plots is proposed for both methods to aid the assessment of the goodness of fit. The two methods are compared in terms of structure and assumptions. They are then compared through an analysis of the gender- and age-specific mortality rates for England and Wales over the period 1950-1998 and through a consideration of the forecasts generated by the two methods. The paper also compares different approaches to the forecasting of life expectancy and considers the effectiveness of the Coale-Guo method for extrapolating mortality rates to the oldest ages. Copyright 2003 Royal Statistical Society.