IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v101y2011i3p29-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Explains Changes in Retirement Plans during the Great Recession?

Author

Listed:
  • Gopi Shah Goda
  • John B. Shoven
  • Sita Nataraj Slavov

Abstract

We examine changes in subjective probabilities regarding retirement between the 2006 and 2008 waves of the Health and Retirement Study. Using a first-difference approach to eliminate individual heterogeneity, we find that the steep drop in asset prices in 2008 increased the reported probability of working at age 62 during the Great Recession. Increasing unemployment at least partly attenuated this effect, but subjective probabilities of working did not respond to changes in housing markets. Older workers' probabilities of working were more sensitive to fluctuations in the stock market, but less responsive to changes in labor market conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2011. "What Explains Changes in Retirement Plans during the Great Recession?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 29-34, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:3:p:29-34
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.3.29
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael D. Hurd & Monika Reti & Susann Rohwedder, 2009. "The Effect of Large Capital Gains or Losses on Retirement," NBER Chapters, in: Developments in the Economics of Aging, pages 127-163, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Coile Courtney C & Levine Phillip B, 2011. "The Market Crash and Mass Layoffs: How the Current Economic Crisis May Affect Retirement," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-42, April.
    3. Michael D. Hurd & Monika Reti, 2001. "The Effects of Large Capital Gains on Work and Consumption Evidence from Four Waves of the HRS," Working Papers DRU-3011, RAND Corporation.
    4. David A. Wise, 2009. "Developments in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise09-1, March.
    5. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier & Nahid Tabatabai, 2009. "How Do Pension Changes Affect Retirement Preparedness? The Trend to Defined Contribution Plans and the Vulnerability of the Retirement Age Population to the Stock Market Decline of 2008-2009," Working Papers wp206, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2012. "Does Stock Market Performance Influence Retirement Intentions?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(4), pages 1055-1081.
    2. Gustafson, Matthew T., 2017. "The market sensitivity of retirement and defined contribution pensions: Evidence from the public sector," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 1-13.
    3. Begley, Jaclene & Chan, Sewin, 2018. "The effect of housing wealth shocks on work and retirement decisions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 180-195.
    4. Hugo Benítez-Silva & J. Ignacio García-Pérez & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2011. "The effects of employment uncertainty and wealth shocks on the labor supply and claiming behavior of older American workers," Economics Working Papers 1275, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    5. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier & Nahid Tabatabai, 2010. "What the Stock Market Decline Means for the Financial Security and Retirement Choices of the Near-Retirement Population," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 161-182, Winter.
    6. Paul Marmora & Moritz Ritter, 2015. "Unemployment and the Retirement Decisions of Older Workers," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 274-290, September.
    7. Courtney C. Coile & Phillip B. Levine, 2010. "Recessions, Reeling Markets, and Retiree Well-Being," NBER Working Papers 16066, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Purvi Sevak & Lucie Schmidt, 2011. "Macroeconomic Conditions and Updating of Expectations by Older Americans," Working Papers wp259, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    9. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier & Nahid Tabatabai, 2011. "How Did the Recession of 2007-2009 Affect the Wealth and Retirement of the Near Retirement Age Population in the Health and Retirement Study?," Working Papers wp253, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    10. Crawford, Rowena, 2013. "The effect of the financial crisis on the retirement plans of older workers in England," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 156-159.
    11. Joan Costa-Font & Cristina Vilaplana-Prieto, 2022. "Biased survival expectations and behaviours: Does domain specific information matter?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 285-317, December.
    12. Martin Farnham & Purvi Sevak, 2016. "Housing Wealth and Retirement Timing," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 62(1), pages 26-46.
    13. repec:ces:ifodic:v:13:y:2015:i:2:p:19166282 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Matteo Picchio & Sigrid Suetens & Jan C. van Ours, 2018. "Labour Supply Effects of Winning a Lottery," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1700-1729, June.
    15. Courtney Coile, 2015. "Recessions and Retirement: How Stock and Labor Market Fluctuations Affect Older Workers," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 13(2), pages 03-07, 08.
    16. Bo Zhao, 2018. "Too Poor to Retire? Housing Prices and Retirement," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 27, pages 27-47, January.
    17. Mary J. Lopez & Sita Slavov, 2020. "Do immigrants delay retirement and social security claiming?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(10), pages 1105-1123, February.
    18. Coile Courtney C & Levine Phillip B, 2011. "The Market Crash and Mass Layoffs: How the Current Economic Crisis May Affect Retirement," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-42, April.
    19. Aylit Tina Romm, 2014. "An interpretation of focal point responses as non-additive beliefs," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 9(5), pages 387-402, September.
    20. Hugo Benítez-Silva & J. Ignacio García-Pérez & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2015. "The Effects of Employment Uncertainty, Unemployment Insurance, and Wealth Shocks on the Retirement Behavior of Older Americans," Working Papers 2015-06, FEDEA.
    21. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & Minjoon Lee & Matthew D. Shapiro & Christopher Tonetti, 2015. "The Wealth of Wealthholders," NBER Working Papers 20972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:3:p:29-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.