Richard Thaler is a professor at the University of Chicago and he is a renown economist.

Best known for his work in the area of behavioral finance, Thaler focuses on how human psychology affects economic decision making.

Thaler recently wrote a piece on annuities which was published in the New York Times.

It appears that people who have access to the pension-like, guaranteed lifetime income that comes from annuities might be happier in retirement.

The empirical basis for this possible correlation between annuities and retirement satisfaction is in a working paper by Constantijn W.A. Panis, Ph.D.   This working paper evolved into a chapter of the book Pension Design and Structure:  New Lessons from Behavioral Finance, Olivia S. Mitchell and Stephen P. Utkus.

Meir Statman is the Glenn Klimek Professor of Finance at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, and Visiting Professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

His research on behavioral finance has been supported by the National Science Foundation, CFA Institute, and Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA) and has been published in the Journal of Finance, Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Portfolio Management, and many other publications.