In this report, we consider policies to help people appropriately manage their defined contribution (DC) pension wealth through later life. We draw on evidence in a report published alongside this one (Boileau, Cribb and Emmerson, 2025), which sets out key information on the landscape in which...

This report is one of two reports on the management of pension wealth in retirement conducted as part of the Pensions Review, led by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in partnership with the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust. In this report, we examine the decisions that older individuals face as...

The study examines the shift in taxation of open-ended fixed-income funds in Brazil from a realization basis to an accrual basis (locally known as come-cotas), which was introduced in 1998 and more recently extended to include private closed-end funds and offshore trusts through the enactment of...

We set up a life cycle model with real interest rate risk to demonstrate that real interest rates have implications for optimal household consumption and investments. Lower interest rates lead to higher optimal stock investments and lower consumption. Ignoring the time-varying nature of real...

This study investigates the role of savings as a channel for the second demographic dividend in minimum comparable areas (MCA) in Brazil between 2000 and 2010. Using spatial econometric models, the research analyzed the effects of per capita savings, education, and labor force participation on...

Europe faces massive investment needs: it must regain competitiveness, provide stability to its ageing population, and confront climate change and external threats. This has renewed the urgency of the decade-old European Union (EU) project for a capital markets union (CMU). CMU is a cornerstone...

This paper investigates the role of family firms in the fall of the labor share and rise in corporate saving in Germany from 1993 to 2019. Combining a new Family Ownership and Governance (FOG) database with financial data, we analyze 929 publicly listed firms. Our findings show that firm-level...

This study addressed the research question of how overspending is related to retirement preparation. A commonsense answer to this question is this: overspending should negatively impact retirement preparation. However, the existing body of knowledge does not provide evidence to support or deny...

This paper examines how individuals respond financially to severe health shocks by analyzing early withdrawals from retirement savings following the initiation of cancer treatment (chemotherapy). Using comprehensive administrative data from Australia that link health, tax, and demographic...

This paper investigates the sensitivity of Genuine Savings (GS), a widely used economic indicator of sustainable development, to methodological choices in practical wealth accounting. Using a sample of 33 countries and two major international datasets (World Bank and AMECO), theoretically...

This paper studies families' capacity to pay for college in the United States, focusing on changes over time and differences by race and socioeconomic status. I use data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) to document changes over time in the Expected Family Contribution...

Low- and middle-income countries are experiencing fast population aging and reductions in extreme poverty, increasing theoretical incentives to save for old age, but empirical evidence on household wealth accumulation over the life cycle is lacking. Using age-cohort-time decompositions on 18...

Low- and middle-income countries are aging rapidly but stagnation of growth in participation in pension programs, due to widespread informal employment, presents a major fiscal challenge. Some claim that improving the design of pension program rules can encourage more pension contributions,...

I examine whether individuals' subjective unemployment expectations and self-insurance behavior are systematically related to unemployment experiences within their social networks. Using a combination of survey-elicited subjective unemployment expectations and Danish administrative data, I...

Saving rates are significantly different across countries and remain different for long periods of time. This paper provides an explanation for this phenomenon. We formalize a model of a world economy comprised of open economies inhabited by heterogeneous agents endowed with recursive...

Mobile air-conditioning (MAC) systems represent a significant source of energy consumption in passenger vehicles, particularly under real-world operating conditions. Improving the efficiency of these systems is crucial for enhancing overall energy performance while ensuring occupant comfort....

This paper investigates the role of family firms in the fall of the labor share and rise in corporate saving in Germany from 1993 to 2019. Combining a new Family Ownership and Governance (FOG) database with financial data, we analyze 929 publicly listed firms. Our findings show that firm-level...