The book reviews the finance, economics, and history of tontines, and argues that they should be resurrected in the twenty-first century.

From the last decades of the seventeenth century until the beginning of the twentieth, the tontine, in one form or another, was a ubiquitous financial instrument. As a revenue-raising tool of governments it supported the cost of war, and as a private capital-raising instrument it provided funding for civic improvement and urban development projects. While the tontine is known today mainly through fictional works (Robert Louis Stevenson, Agatha Christie, and The Simpsons among others), this book tells the history of how it evolved from a public revenue-raising scheme into a popular private investment and infrastructure financing tool, before it was displaced by cheaper forms of borrowing. Focusing on the early development of the tontine, and with European and North American case studies, the narrative brings to life the story of a little-understood financial innovation. This concise and engaging book is an ideal introduction to the history of the tontine for all readers interested in financial history.

This open access book introduces the modern tontine and its applications in retirement and decumulation. Personal financial management in the later stages of life presents unique challenges, and renowned retirement planning expert Dr. Milevsky proposes the modern tontine as a solution. With the goal of guiding professionals and retirees in more efficient decumulation, the book demonstrates how to build a modern tontine. It is technically oriented, employing a cookbook format, featuring R code, and examining retirement planning through a statistical lens. This how-to guide, which is a sequel to his 2020 book “Retirement Income Recipes in R”, will be invaluable for retirement planning professionals and advisors, as well as for PhD scholars in retirement planning, quantitative finance, and related fields. This book is open access.