An indexed universal life policy demands about as little maintenance as an eight-cylinder, 750-horsepower, 200-mph NASCAR stock car. And in the hands of an unskilled, or untrustworthy driver, or pit crew, such a policy can crash and burn.

Today’s financial Goldilocks moment—with strong equity returns and robust fixed income yields—creates favorable conditions for the Netherlands to complete its long-planned switch from traditional private defined benefit plans to 'collective defined contribution.' 'You can almost call it a tontine,' a Dutch pension consultant told RIJ.

We feature two deep-dive research papers on private credit. One is from Victoria Ivashina of Harvard Business School and the other from a team that includes Amir Sufi, co-author of "House of Debt" (U. of Chicago, 2014.) Plus two papers on combining income annuities with private savings and a paper on the domino effect that TDF reallocations can inflict on the bond market.