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The Impact of Financial Education on Savings and Asset

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  • Annamaria Lusardi

    (Dartmouth College)

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    Abstract

    The responsibility to save and contribute to a pension is increasingly left to the individual worker. Understanding how households save and prepare for retirement is of paramount importance. There is concern in the U.S. that many families have little or no wealth even close to retirement. In this project, I use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative sample of the cohort born between 1931 to 1941, to examine the financial situation of older households and their retirement plans. I first show that many families have not thought about retirement even though they are a few years away from retirement and the event is imminent. This finding confirms the results of other surveys, such as the Retirement Confidence Survey, that show that a large majority of workers have not made any plans for retirement.

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    File URL: http://www.mrrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp061.pdf
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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center in its series Working Papers with number wp061.

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    Length: 61 pages
    Date of creation: Oct 2003
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:mrr:papers:wp061

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    References

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    1. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1995. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Department of Economics Working Papers 1995-02, McMaster University.
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    9. James P. Smith, 2004. "Racial and Ethnic Differences in Wealth in the Health and Retirement Study," Labor and Demography 0408011, EconWPA.
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    25. Annamaria Lusardi & Ricardo Cossa & Erin L. Krupka, 2001. "Savings of Young Parents," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(4), pages 762-794.
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    Cited by:
    1. Han, Chang-Keun & Sherraden, Michael, 2009. "Do institutions really matter for saving among low-income households? A comparative approach," The Journal of Socio-Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 475-483, June.

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