Comment on Chen and Lin “Does downloading Powerpoint slides before the lecture lead to better student achievement?â€

Chen and Lin (2008) is an interesting attempt to measure the effect of students having access to PowerPoint slides before a lecture. They argue that such access leads to better learning outcomes as measured by higher exam marks. While their empirical results shed some light on students’ use of PowerPoint slides, I argue that they have not succeeded in isolating the treatment effect and the correlations cannot be interpreted as causal.

The Value and Risk of Defined Contribution Pension Schemes: International Evidence

Using data on historical returns on international financial assets, the paper simulates pension fund and pension replacement ratios, building up frequency distributions of these ratios for individuals saving in a defined contribution pension plan in different countries. These frequency distributions illustrate the risk in the pension replacement ratio faced by an individual who saves in a typical defined contribution pension scheme.Risks, Defined contribution pension schemes, pension replacement ratio.

Annuity Prices, Money's Worth and Replacement Ratios: UK experience 1972 - 2002

In this paper we construct a time series of annuity prices from 1972-2002, and examine whether annuity rates are unfairly priced, and assess the extent to which annuitisation risks are hedged by stock market returns. We find no evidence that the average annuity rate is unfairly low. Depending on the assumptions about future longevity, the present value of an annuity (it's money's worth) is of the order of between 90 per cent and 100 per cent of the purchase price. Compared with the typical costs of buying financial services this figure looks suspiciously good. In addition, we find no reason to suggest that individuals are worse off by annuity rates being low, since this has been off-set by increases in the value of pension funds over the last thirty years. Even apart from the fact that people retiring today expect to live longer, their pension income (compared to their final salary) looks as good as ever.annuities, money's worth, replacement ratios

The Impact of Age Distribution Variables on the Long Run Consumption Function

Modigliani's Life Cycle Hypothesis (LCH) predicts that demographic variables should play a significant role in our understanding of the relationship between consumption and income. Understanding this relationship is particularly important given the demographic changes expected in the next few decades. Unfortunately, evidence for the importance of demographic variables is mixed: unsurprisingly since such variables change relatively slowly and most analysis is confined to post war data. In this paper we use a much longer time series of aggregate variables (1856-1996) which models consumption, income and demographic effects in a vector error correction framework allowing for structural breaks. Our analysis shows that demographic effects have an important effect in the manner predicted by the LCH.Consumption, ageing population, breaks in trend.

Euro-illusion: a natural experiment.

We collect and analyse data on church collections to assess whether the introduction of Euro notes and coins had real effects on giving. Data for Italy suggests that money is not completely neutral while Irish data suggests a lower degree of money illusion.Euro, money illusion, church giving, natural experiment

Money’s worth of pension annuities

© Crown copyright 2009. Published for the Department for Work and Pensions under licence from the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.The report examines a time series of pension annuity rates in the UK for 1994- 2007. It computes the money's worth of annuities, and finds that, on average, the money's worth over the sample period for 65-year old males has been 90 per cent, and for 65-year old females has been a similar, but slightly larger, 91 per cent. Taking into account load factors associated with annuity contracts and in comparison with other financial and insurance products, this implies that annuities are fairly priced.Research carried out by the Department of Economics, University of Bristol and XFi Centre for Finance and Investment, University of Exeter on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions

Compulsory and voluntary annuities markets in the UK

Working paperThis paper describes the operation of both the compulsory pension annuity and voluntary annuity markets in the UK. The paper reports on the movement of UK annuity price quotes in the voluntary market from 1957-2009, and in the pension annuity market from 1994 to 2009, and examines whether annuities were fairly priced over this period. The paper computes the money’s worth of annuities, and finds that on average the money’s worth in the voluntary market over the sample period for 65-year old males has been a very high 98%. In the larger compulsory pension annuity over a shorter sample period we estimate that the money’s worth for 65-year old males has been 89%, and for 65-year old females has been a similar but slightly larger 90%. Taking into account load factors associated with annuity contracts and in comparison with other financial and insurance products this implies that annuities are fairly priced. However the value of the money’s worth is sensitive to the assumptions made about life expectancy, and we explain the assumptions made about the appropriate life tables to apply to annuitants in these annuity markets. There is some evidence that money’s worth has fallen since 2002. We discuss a number of factors that could have effected the fall in money’s worth, including: changes in insurance regulation; changes in industrial concentration; an insurance cycle; pricing of mortality uncertainty and the growth in the impaired lives market.Part of this work arose out of a project at the Department of Work and Pension

The value and risk of defined contribution pension schemes: international evidence

Working paperUsing data on historical returns on international financial assets, the paper simulates pension fund and pension replacement ratios, building up frequency distributions of these ratios for individuals saving in a defined contribution pension plan in different countries. These frequency distributions illustrate the risk in the pension replacement ratio faced by an individual who saves in a typical defined contribution pension scheme

Compulsory and Voluntary Annuity Markets in the United Kingdom

This chapter describes the operation of both the compulsory pension annuity and voluntary annuity markets in the U.K. and evaluates prices using a money’s worth approach. We find that the money’s worth was about 0.90 to 2004 but it then fell to about 0.80, although there is uncertainty about the appropriate mortality table. We suggest that the level of the money’s worth is comparable to that of other financial products and we consider possible reasons for the recent fall

Variations in the price and quality of English grain, 1750-1914:Quantitative evidence and empirical implications

Interpretation of historic grain price data may be hazardous owing to systematic grain quality variation – both cross sectionally and over varying time horizons (intra-year, inter-year, long run). We use the English wheat market, 1750-1914, as an example to quantify this issue. First, we show that bushel weight approximates grain quality. Then we show that cross sectional and intra-year variation are substantial and problematic, generating erroneous inference regarding market integration. Long run variation is significant, due to sharply declining international quality differentials, and this impacts estimated cost of living changes. By contrast, inter-year variation is smaller and controlled for more easily