While housing equity accounts for a large portion of many retiree's savings portfolios, they are not using their equity to increase consumption in retirement as suggested by the Life-Cycle Hypothesis. Defined benefit plans provide a guaranteed source of income in retirement where the household...

Microeconomic theory suggests that annuities are favorable because they ensure a steady path of consumption no matter how long the annuitant will live. As a promising attempt to explain why actual annuitization rates are lower than expected, it has recently been argued that consumers do not use...

Good news can involve difficult decisions. For example winning a lottery jackpot can go along with the decision, whether to have the jackpot paid out immediately as a lump sum or as periodic annual payments. Also when entering retirement most people face the decision whether they want their...

Medicaid provides a critical source of insurance for long-term care, and individuals may strategically offload assets (typically to children) to meet the means-tested eligibility requirement. In this paper, we quantify the extent of such behavior using variation in the penalty for improper...

We fielded an online survey in the Netherlands and Australia to explore the influence of an implied endorsement nudge, conveyed by a government regulated drawdown from pension wealth, on spending patterns in retirement. The implied endorsement nudge was effective. It influenced the preferred...

This paper focuses on the use of reverse mortgages or home equity conversion mortgages (HECMs) to enhance retirement security. If present trends continue, many American households working today will face a significant retirement funding gap, and this study asks whether reverse mortgages can be...

This study used data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study to analyze the adoption of mobile payments by U.S. households. While 24% of respondents used mobile payments, the mean rate for those under age 25 was 11 times the rate for those 65 and older. State rates ranged from about 9%...

Facing a reduction in pension generosity, individuals can compensate the loss by working longer or saving more. This paper shows that the impact of changes in pension generosity on saving crucially depends on the possibility of prolonging future employment. Exploiting across cohort variation in...

We investigate the wealth decumulation decision from the perspective of a retiree who is averse to the prospect of fully annuitizing her accumulated savings. We field a large online survey of hypothetical product choices for phased drawdown offerings and annuities. While the demand for annuities...

This paper discusses three alternative assumptions concerning household preferences (altruism, self-interest, and a desire for dynasty building) and shows that these assumptions have very different implications for bequest motives and bequest division. After reviewing some of the literature on...