La vie pour l'épargnant ne se réduit pas à un exercice de calcul. Les apports d'une approche existentielle du cycle de vie

The so-called existential approach tries to explain a number of ?anomalies? concerning saver?s behaviour over the life-cycle, without putting forward, as does the psycho-economic school, saver?s limited rationality. This approach takes into account the ?situation context? of the life-cycle saver while incorporating one?s human subjectivity, the latter conditioning, especially, the relations between present and future selves and the ground projects that give today meaning and contain to one?s life. It thus leads to an enriched conception of time preference which exhibits discontinuities at major life events or decision nodes separating successive phases of the life-cycle, and admits that the saver?s relations with his/her own death are not simply governed by expected utility applied to survival probabilities. The approach gives account of the failures of experimental tests aiming at reproducing the time of real life in the laboratory ; it helps to explain the overall little diffusion of life annuities, as well as a limited rate of ownership of stocks in France which is, moreover, as high or higher among more risk averse retired households.