Working Papers,
Copenhagen Business School, Department of Finance

Abstract: De ned contribution pension schemes and life

insurance contracts often have a minimum interest rate guar-

antee as an integrated part of the contract. This guarantee

is an embedded put option issued by the institution to the

individual, who is forced to hold the option in the portfolio.

However, taking the inability to short this saving and other

institutional restrictions into account the individual may

actually face a restriction on the feasible set of portfolio

choices, hence be better o without such guarantees. We

measure the e ect of the minimum interest guarantee con-

straint through the wealth equivalent and show that guar-

antees may induce a signi cant utility loss for relatively risk

tolerant investors.

We also consider the case with heterogenous investors sha-

ring a common portfolio. Investors with di erent risk atti-

tudes will experience a loss of utility by being forced to share

a common portfolio. However, the relatively risk averse in-

vestors are partly compensated by the minimum interest rate

guarantee, whereas the relatively risk tolerant investors are

su ering a further utility loss.

Keywords: Minimum interest rate guarantee; asset allo- cation restrictions; utility loss; wealth equivalent; heteroge- nous investors.

JEL-codes: G11; G13

31 pages, January 12, 2000

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