Household saving is still little understood, and even the basic facts – for instance: How does saving change over the life cycle? Does saving turn negative in old age? – are controversial. Understanding saving behavior is not only an important question of economic theory because...

In this paper, the author estimates Euler equations, i.e., the first order conditions of the consumers' maximization problem, using data from two data sets. Consumption data are taken from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Income data are taken from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Since the...

It is well-known that individuals born in different periods of time (cohorts)exhibit different wealth accumulation paths. While previous studies have usedcohort dummies to proxy for this fact, research in this area suffers from aserious identification problem, i.e., how to disentangle age, time,...

We analyze older individuals' debt and financial vulnerability using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the National Financial Capability Study (NFCS). Specifically, in the HRS we examine three different cohorts (individuals age 56-61) in 1992, 2004, and 2010 to evaluate...

This paper reports on several self-assessed and objective measures of financial literacy newly added to the American Life Panel (ALP), and it links these performance measures to efforts consumers make to plan for retirement. We evaluate the causal relationship between financial literacy and...

It is well-known that individuals born in different periods of time (cohorts or generations) exhibit different wealth accumulation paths. While previous studies have used cohort dummies to proxy for this fact, research in this area suffers from a serious identification problem, i.e., how to...