The vast majority of individual retirement account (IRA) contributions represent net new saving, based on evidence from the quarterly Consumer Expenditure Surveys. The results are based on analysis of the relationship between IRA contributions and other financial asset saving. The data show almost no substitution of IRAs for other saving. Estimates are based on a flexible constrained optimization model, with the IRA limit the principal constraint. The implications of this model for saving in the absence of the IRA option match very closely the actual non-IRA financial asset saving behavior prior to 1982. IRA saving does not show up as other financial asset saving in the pre-IRA period. Copyright 1990, the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Volume (Year): 105 (1990) Issue (Month): 3 (August) Pages: 661-98 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
B. Douglas Bernheim & John B. Shoven, 1985.
"Pension Funding and Saving,"
NBER Working Papers
1622, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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B. Douglas Bernheim & John B. Shoven, 1988.
"Pension Funding and Saving,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Pensions in the U.S. Economy, pages 85-114
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Michael D. Hurd & John B. Shoven, 1983.
"The Economic Status of the Elderly,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 359-398
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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