The shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans in the United States has drawn new attention to the effect of participants' asset allocation decisions on their financial resources for retirement. This paper develops a stochastic simulation algorithm to evaluate the effect of holding...

This paper examines how different asset allocation strategies over the course of a worker's career affect the distribution of retirement wealth and the expected utility of wealth at retirement. It considers both rules that allocate a constant portfolio fraction to various assets at all ages, as...

The private pension structure in the United States, once dominated by defined benefit (DB) plans, is currently divided between defined contribution (DC) and DB plans. Wealth accumulation in DC plans depends on the participant's contribution behavior and on financial market returns, while...

This paper examines how different asset allocation strategies over the course of a worker's career affect the distribution of retirement wealth and the expected utility of wealth at retirement. It considers both rules that allocate a constant portfolio fraction to various assets at all ages, as...

The shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans in the United States has drawn new attention to the effect of participants' asset allocation decisions on their financial resources for retirement. This paper develops a stochastic simulation algorithm to evaluate the effect of holding...

We consider assets when individuals were last observed prior to death in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and trace assets backwards to the age when these individuals were first observed. For most individuals, assets in the last year observed (LYO) were very similar to assets in the first...

The pension landscape in the U.S. has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. Saving through personal retirement accounts has become the principal form of retirement saving. We document the transition from a defined benefit system to a personal account system and show the effect it has had...

Over the past two and a half decades there has been a fundamental change in saving for retirement in the United States, with a rapid shift from employer-managed defined benefit pensions to defined contribution saving plans that are largely controlled by employees. To understand how this change...