Enjoy these summaries of six recent research papers that illuminate issues in retirement today. We include work by leading retirement researchers at Harvard Law School, schools of business at Stanford and Duke Universities, and other major academic institutions.

Short-sellers, including hedge funds, sense that the bespoke loans that asset managers have sold to life insurers could fail in the next financial crisis. They may not know it, but the shorts are responding in part to the growth of what RIJ calls the 'Bermuda Triangle' strategy.

'Everybody—all the asset managers—are trying to pick CIT dance partners so that they can have product in 401(k) plans,' said Chris Randall at SEI Trust Company. CITs—less regulated, cheaper, and more easily-customized than mutual funds—now house 42% of 401(k) investments.