We survey the long-term derivative instruments (warrants) offered by Australian institutions to elderly Australian investors. Our focus is on products other than plain-vanilla life annuities. There are currently four active products. They incorporate a strike price which is either constant or eligible for periodic upward resets. The guarantee terms vary in length from 5 years...

Recent OECD data offer limited support for the proposition that our company tax rate could be cut substantially with little or no loss of tax revenue. Treasury‐type analysis suggests otherwise: our headline rate could be cut to 20 per cent if abolishing dividend imputation were used to finance a cut in the headline rate. But...

After declining worldwide since the late 1980s, defined benefits plans will not recover their previous dominance in Australia because they can only be offered by large and stable organisations. Since 1992 Australia has had compulsory superannuation that is mostly privately managed. In addition, several policy measures have unduly weakened defined benefits schemes, especially in the...

This paper compares and contrasts mainstream agency theory with financial planning practice in Australia. It appears to be the first attempt to do so. It extends an influential mainstream contribution to the literature on agency theory and then uses this extension, in conjunction with other theoretical contributions, to shed light on actual contracts between investors...

The retirement risk zone represents a fragile period in the financial life cycle of people in defined-contributions superannuation. It primarily affects people of middle means. Sequencing risk has been described as an independent risk but it has largely been a consequence of the dominant asset allocation strategy, described here as aggressive constant-mix. Lifetime glide paths...