IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jpbect/v17y2015i3p383-414.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Decisions on Pension Plans in the Presence of Information Costs and Financial Literacy

Author

Listed:
  • LORENZO CORSINI
  • LUCA SPATARO

Abstract

Pension reforms are on the political agenda of many countries. Such reforms imply an increasing responsibility on individuals’ side in building an efficient portfolio for retirement. In this paper, we provide a model describing workers’ choices on the allocation of retirement savings in presence of (1) mandatory pension contribution; (2) different pension plans; and (3) information costs and financial literacy investment decisions. In particular, we characterize the results from both a positive and normative standpoint, by highlighting the determinants of individuals’ choice, with special focus on information costs, on the role of income and preferences, and by characterizing the optimal contribution rate to mandatory complementary pension plans. We also introduce endogenous financial literacy and analyze how its optimal level is determined and how it affects the decisions on pension plans.

Suggested Citation

  • Lorenzo Corsini & Luca Spataro, 2015. "Optimal Decisions on Pension Plans in the Presence of Information Costs and Financial Literacy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(3), pages 383-414, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:17:y:2015:i:3:p:383-414
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jpet.12121
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to 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. Charlotte Christiansen & Juanna Schröter Joensen & Jesper Rangvid, 2008. "Are Economists More Likely to Hold Stocks?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(3), pages 465-496.
    2. Bucher-Koenen, Tabea & Lusardi, Annamaria, 2011. "Financial literacy and retirement planning in Germany," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 565-584, October.
    3. Matsen, Egil & Thogersen, Oystein, 2004. "Designing social security - a portfolio choice approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 883-904, August.
    4. De Menil, Georges & Murtin, Fabrice & Sheshinski, Eytan, 2006. "Planning for the optimal mix of paygo tax and funded savings," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, March.
    5. Lusardi, Annamaria & Mitchell, Olivia S., 2011. "Financial literacy and retirement planning in the United States," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 509-525, October.
    6. Makarov, Dmitry & Schornick, Astrid V., 2010. "A note on wealth effect under CARA utility," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 170-177, September.
    7. van Rooij, Maarten & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob, 2011. "Financial literacy and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 449-472, August.
    8. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2017. "How Ordinary Consumers Make Complex Economic Decisions: Financial Literacy and Retirement Readiness," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(03), pages 1-31, September.
    9. Gordon, Roger H. & Varian, Hal R., 1988. "Intergenerational risk sharing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 185-202, November.
    10. Fort, Margherita & Manaresi, Francesco & Trucchi, Serena, 2012. "Banks Information Policies, Financial Literacy and Household Wealth," IZA Discussion Papers 6989, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Corsini, Lorenzo & Spataro, Luca, 2013. "Savings for retirement under liquidity constraints: A note," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 258-261.
    12. Paul A. Samuelson, 1958. "An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66, pages 467-467.
    13. Annamaria Lusardi & Pierre-Carl Michaud & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2011. "Optimal Financial Literacy and Saving for Retirement," Working Papers 905, RAND Corporation.
    14. Fornero, Elsa & Monticone, Chiara, 2011. "Financial literacy and pension plan participation in Italy," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 547-564, October.
    15. Maarten C.J. van Rooij & Annamaria Lusardi & Rob J.M. Alessie, 2012. "Financial Literacy, Retirement Planning and Household Wealth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 449-478, May.
    16. Andreas Wagener, 2003. "Pensions as a portfolio problem: fixed contribution rates vs. fixed replacement rates reconsidered," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 111-134, February.
    17. Gabrielle Demange, 2009. "On Sustainable Pay‐as‐You‐Go Contribution Rules," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(4), pages 493-527, August.
    18. Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario, 2013. "Investment in financial literacy and saving decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2779-2792.
    19. Dutta, Jayasri & Kapur, Sandeep & Orszag, J. Michael, 2000. "A portfolio approach to the optimal funding of pensions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 201-206, November.
    20. Haliassos, Michael & Bertaut, Carol C, 1995. "Why Do So Few Hold Stocks?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(432), pages 1110-1129, September.
    21. Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2002. "Limited Asset Market Participation and the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 825-853, August.
    22. Samuelson, Paul A, 1975. "Optimum Social Security in a Life-Cycle Growth Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 16(3), pages 539-544, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carpio, Ronaldo & Guo, Meixin & Liu, Yuan & Pyun, Ju Hyun, 2021. "Wealth heterogeneity, information acquisition and equity home bias: Evidence from U.S. household surveys of consumer finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Alderighi, Stefano, 2018. "The determinants of retail trading activity in emerging markets: A cross-market analysis," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 152-167.

    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. Luca Spataro & Lorenzo Corsini, 2017. "Endogenous Financial Literacy, Saving, and Stock Market Participation," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 73(2), pages 135-162, June.
    2. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2014. "The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 5-44, March.
    3. Oscar A. Stolper & Andreas Walter, 2017. "Financial literacy, financial advice, and financial behavior," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 581-643, July.
    4. Corsini, Lorenzo & Spataro, Luca, 2011. "Optimal decisions on pension plans in the presence of financial literacy costs and income inequalities," MPRA Paper 30946, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Margherita Fort & Francesco Manaresi & Serena Trucchi, 2016. "Adult financial literacy and households’ financial assets: the role of bank information policies," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 31(88), pages 743-782.
    6. Zuzana Brokesova & Andrej Cupak & Gueorgui Kolev, 2017. "Financial literacy and voluntary savings for retirement in Slovakia," Working and Discussion Papers WP 10/2017, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    7. Grohmann, Antonia, 2018. "Financial literacy and financial behavior: Evidence from the emerging Asian middle class," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 129-143.
    8. Tabea Bucher-Koenen & Annamaria Lusardi & Rob Alessie & Maarten van Rooij, 2017. "How Financially Literate Are Women? An Overview and New Insights," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 255-283, July.
    9. Luc Arrondel, 2020. "Financial literacy and French behaviour on the stock market," Working Papers halshs-02505320, HAL.
    10. Angelo Baglioni & Luca Colombo & Giulio Piccirilli, 2018. "On the Anatomy of Financial Literacy in Italy," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 47(2-3), pages 245-304, July.
    11. Luc Arrondel, 2018. "Financial Literacy and Asset Behaviour: Poor Education and Zero for Conduct?," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 60(1), pages 144-160, March.
    12. Albert Hizgilov & Jacques Silber, 2020. "On Multidimensional Approaches to Financial Literacy Measurement," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 787-830, April.
    13. Li, Xiao, 2020. "When financial literacy meets textual analysis: A conceptual review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    14. Azra Zaimovic & Anes Torlakovic & Almira Arnaut-Berilo & Tarik Zaimovic & Lejla Dedovic & Minela Nuhic Meskovic, 2023. "Mapping Financial Literacy: A Systematic Literature Review of Determinants and Recent Trends," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-30, June.
    15. Delis, Manthos & Galariotis, Emilios & Monne, Jerome, 2021. "Economic condition and financial cognition," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    16. De Menil, Georges & Murtin, Fabrice & Sheshinski, Eytan & Yokossi, Tite, 2016. "A rational, economic model of paygo tax rates," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 55-72.
    17. Fort, Margherita & Manaresi, Francesco & Trucchi, Serena, 2012. "Banks Information Policies, Financial Literacy and Household Wealth," IZA Discussion Papers 6989, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Niu, Geng & Zhou, Yang & Gan, Hongwu, 2020. "Financial literacy and retirement preparation in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    19. Shen, Chung-Hua & Lin, Shih-Jie & Tang, De-Piao & Hsiao, Yu-Jen, 2016. "The relationship between financial disputes and financial literacy," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 46-65.
    20. Keane, M.P. & Thorp, S., 2016. "Complex Decision Making," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 661-709, Elsevier.

    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:bla:jpbect:v:17:y:2015:i:3:p:383-414. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/apettea.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.