Endowment payouts have become an increasingly important component of universities' revenues in recent decades. We test two leading theories of endowment payouts: (1) universities smooth endowment payouts, or (2) universities use endowments as self-insurance against financial shocks. In contrast...

We show that people have difficulty valuing annuities, and this, instead of a preference for lumpsums, helps explain observed low annuity demand. Although the median price at which people are willing to sell an annuity stream is close to the actuarial value, many responses diverge greatly from...

This paper documents trends over the last two decades in retirement behavior and retirement income choices by participants in TIAA, a large and mature defined contribution plan with a wide range of withdrawal options. Between 2000 and 2018, the average retirement age rose by approximately 1.3...

This paper explores the current tax treatment of non-qualified immediate annuities and distributions from tax-qualified retirement plans in the United States. First, we describe how immediate annuities held outside retirement accounts are taxed. We conclude that the current income tax treatment...

We study the empirical determinants of intertemporal choice by analyzing a unique decision Croatian retirees made recently about whether to accept an immediate pension payment or a larger stream of delayed payments. Individual decisions are correlated in sensible ways with income, liquidity...

This paper is the first to investigate the importance of geography in explaining equity market participation. We provide evidence to support two distinct local area effects. The first is a community ownership effect, that is, individuals are influenced by the investment behavior of members of...

This paper establishes a causal relation between an individual's decision of whether to own stocks and average stock market participation decision of the individual's community. We instrument for the average ownership of an individual's community with lagged average ownership of the states in...

Because of differences in accrued gains and investors' tax-sensitivity, capital gains "lock-in" varies across mutual funds even for the same stock at the same time. Using this variation, we show that tax lock-in affects funds' governance decisions. Higher tax lock-in decreases the likelihood a...

We exploit demographic variation to identify the effect of dividend demand on corporate payout policy. Retail investors tend to hold local stocks and older investors prefer dividend-paying stocks. Together, these tendencies generate geographically-varying demand for dividends. Firms...

Using data on the investments a large number of individual investors made through a discount broker from 1991 to 1996, we find that the stock trades by households with concentrated portfolios outperform those with diversified portfolios. While in general the stocks bought by individual investors...