King William's Tontine: Why the Retirement Annuity of the Future Should Resemble its Past

In a time before bonds, treasury notes, or central banks, there were tontines. These were schemes in which a group of investors lent money to a government, corporation, or king, similar to a modern-day loan syndicate. But unlike conventional debt, periodic interest payments were distributed only to survivors. As tontine nominees died, the income of survivors correspondingly increased. Morbid, perhaps, but this was one of the earliest forms of longevity insurance in which the pool shared the...