The share of workers who participate in employer-sponsored tax-deferred plans has been growing, but is still only a minority of workers. Most workers do not contribute the maximum amount allowed by law to employer-sponsored plans. Maximum contributors are more prevalent among high-income...

We investigate whether heterogeneity can explain the differences in mortality between the United States and a more homogeneous country, i.e. Japan. The background of the analysis is the growing gap between life-expectancy in the United States and the world record leader since the 1980s. This...

This paper investigates two methods for improving participants’ asset allocations in their 401(k) plans: personalized online advice and managed account services. This paper uses a unique new dataset of individual-level administrative data from one 401(k) plan and recommendation data from an...

Because most workers receive health benefits from their employers, retirement often disrupts health insurance coverage. Some employers offer health insurance to retirees, but many firms are cutting retiree health benefits by passing more costs to retirees or eliminating benefits altogether. Few...

In recent years, many countries with mandatory defined benefit pay-as-you-go (“PAYG”) systems have modified their systems to include individual accounts for financing retirement pensions. In most of these countries, a portion of the mandatory pension system’s contribution rate has been...

A considerable literature examines the optimal decumulation of financial wealth in retirement. We extend this line of research to incorporate housing, which comprises the majority of most households’ non-pension wealth. We use VARs to estimate the relationship between the returns on housing,...

Opt-out pensions pose many difficult design and implementation issues. The U.K. experience suggests several valuable lessons for U.S. policymakers. First, complex interactions between public and opt-out pensions may create confusion among workers, leading to both discontent and demands for...

The S&P 500 Index dropped more than 40 percent between March 2000 and March 2003, and almost anyone who entrusted their retirement savings to the bull market of the late 1990s saw their portfolio shrink, often in dramatic fashion. Now that the stock market is regaining some of its lost value,...