Labor market participation and portfolio choice

In this talk, Dr Enrico Biffis, Associate Professor of Actuarial Finance from Imperial College, London, will be discussing models of portfolio choice able to match the empirical evidence on asset allocation and labor market participation during the latter part of an individual's working life. Some “puzzles” will be revisited by considering the role of wage rigidity, flexible working, medical expenses and insurance coverage in portfolio choice. The emphasis will be on models delivering novel semi-closed form solutions supporting our understanding of the main trade-offs at play. The findings will be used to address policy questions pertaining to minimum retirement age and eligibility criteria for medical coverage.

Enrico Biffis is Associate Professor of Actuarial Finance at Imperial College Business School, Associate Director for Development Finance at the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis, Director of the Sustainable Finance Lab at I-X and a member of the Centre for Climate Finance & Investment at Imperial. His areas of expertise are risk analysis and asset-liability management, with a focus on applications in the insurance and investment management sectors, as well as the design of predictive analytics and risk management tools for a variety of asset classes. Dr Biffis has collaborated extensively with leading financial institutions, regulators, governmental and non-governmental organizations, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for his research on the modelling and transfer of large risks. Prior academic experience includes work as tenured faculty at the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University and as an editor of ASTIN Bulletin – The Journal of the International Actuarial Association. He was recently awarded the FT Responsible Business Education Research Award for his work on parametric insurance and financial inclusion, as well as the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' Brian Hey Prize and the Casualty and Actuarial Society's Charles A. Hachemeister Prize for his work on large commercial risks.