The First Biblical Annuity

Goes back in time to the earlier examples of pension and life annuities, well before the advent of longevity risk pooling. The chapter focuses geographically on Babylonian during the fifth century BC, when the Babylonian king offered an annuity to the exiled Judean king, paid in commodities such as oil. The chapter then attempts to value those early non-diversified annuities, using interest rates and mortality rates during that thousand-year period, covering Rome, Greece, and Mesopotamia. The key insight relevant to the main theses of this book is that the earliest documented annuity is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and is consistent with archeological evidence from cuneiform tablets. It concludes by offering sources for additional reading and references.