The share of the U.S. population over the age of 65 was 8.1 percent in 1950, 12.4 percent in 2000, and is projected to reach 20.9 percent by 2050. The percent over 85 is projected to more than double from current levels, reaching 4.2 percent by mid-century. The aging of the U.S. population makes...

Social Security benefits are the most important component of the income of a large fraction of older Americans. A significant fraction of persons approach the end of life with few financial assets and no home equity, relying almost entirely on Social Security benefits for support. Whether...

This paper investigates how the 2009 one-time suspension of the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) rules associated with qualified retirement plans affected plan distributions at TIAA-CREF, a large retirement services provider. Using panel data on retirement plan participants at TIAA-CREF, we...

This paper explores the relationship between education and the evolution of wealth after retirement. Asset growth following retirement depends in part on health capital and financial capital accumulated prior to retirement, which in turn are strongly related to educational attainment. These...

Variable annuities have been one of the most rapidly growing financial products of the last two decades. Between 1996 and 2004, nominal sales of variable annuities in the U.S. more than doubled, from $51 billion to $130 billion. Variable annuities now account for approximately nearly two thirds...

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...

Mutual funds must disclose their portfolio holdings to investors semiannually. The costs and benefits of such disclosures are a long-standing subject of debate. For actively managed funds, one cost of disclosure is a potential reduction in the private benefits from research on asset values....

This paper summarizes our earlier research documenting the characteristic speculative dynamics of many asset markets and suggests a framework for understanding them. Our model incorporates "feedback traders," traders whose demand is based on the history of past returns rather than the...

This paper presents evidence on the characteristic speculative dynamics of a wide range of asset returns. It highlights three stylized facts. First, returns tend to be positively serially correlated at high frequency. Second, returns tend to be negatively serially correlated over long horizons....

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...