IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v32y2006i1p67-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Recent Stock Market Fluctuations and Retirement Income Adequacy

Author

Listed:
  • Christian E. Weller

    (Center for American Progress)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of wealth fluctuations on retirement income adequacy between 1992 and 2001. In addition, the paper estimates how financial wealth relative to income may develop in the medium to long-term. The average household was adequately prepared for retirement, even after the decline in the stock market, if it is assumed that retirement income needs fall in real terms with age. But if a fixed real level of consumption is considered for retirement income adequacy, the average household was more likely inadequately prepared for retirement, even after wealth increased dramatically in the late 1990s. Moreover, on average households can only expect to reach their peak wealth to income levels again within the next 10 to 20 years if increases in personal savings rates or rates of return are assumed. Without such changes, it is also unlikely that households will be able, on average, to reach an adequate level of retirement savings, assuming that their income needs in retirement do not decline in real terms.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian E. Weller, 2006. "The Recent Stock Market Fluctuations and Retirement Income Adequacy," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 67-81, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:32:y:2006:i:1:p:67-81
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume32/V32N1P67_81.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James M. Poterba & Steven F. Venti, 1998. "Personal Retirement Saving Programs and Asset Accumulation: Reconciling the Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in the Economics of Aging, pages 23-124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. James M. Poterba & Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 1996. "How Retirement Saving Programs Increase Saving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 91-112, Fall.
    3. Robert B. Barsky & Miles S. Kimball & F. Thomas Juster & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1995. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Survey," NBER Working Papers 5213, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Engen, Eric & Gale, William & Uccello, Cori, 1999. "The Adequacy of Household Saving," MPRA Paper 56442, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Eric M. Engen & William G. Gale, 2000. "The Effects of 401(k) Plans on Household Wealth: Differences Across Earnings Groups," NBER Working Papers 8032, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Robert B. Barsky & F. Thomas Juster & Miles S. Kimball & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1997. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 537-579.
    7. Mirer, Thad W, 1979. "The Wealth-Age Relation among the Aged," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 435-443, June.
    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. James M. Poterba & Steven F. Venti, 2004. "The Transition to Personal Accounts and Increasing Retirement Wealth: Macro- and Microevidence," NBER Chapters, in: Perspectives on the Economics of Aging, pages 17-80, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Eric M. Engen & William G. Gale, 2000. "The Effects of 401(k) Plans on Household Wealth: Differences Across Earnings Groups," NBER Working Papers 8032, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Karen M. Pence, 2002. "401(k)s and household saving: new evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-6, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Robert J. Shiller, 2003. "Social Security and Individual Accounts as Elements of Overall Risk-Sharing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 343-347, May.
    5. van Rooij, Maarten C.J. & Kool, Clemens J.M. & Prast, Henriette M., 2007. "Risk-return preferences in the pension domain: Are people able to choose?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 701-722, April.
    6. Luigi Guiso, 2015. "A Test of Narrow Framing and its Origin," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 1(1), pages 61-100, March.
    7. Arthur Van Soest & Arie Kapteyn & Julie Zissimopoulos, 2006. "Using Stated Preferences Data to Analyze Preferences for Full and Partial Retirement," Working Papers WR-345, RAND Corporation.
    8. Minh Ha-Duong & Nicolas Treich, 2004. "Risk Aversion, Intergenerational Equity and Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 28(2), pages 195-207, June.
    9. Ryan Edwards, 2013. "The cost of uncertain life span," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1485-1522, October.
    10. Luc Arrondel & André Masson, 2013. "Measuring savers' preferences how and why?," PSE Working Papers halshs-00834203, HAL.
    11. Ellen Meara, 2001. "Why is Health Related to Socioeconomic Status?," NBER Working Papers 8231, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Hans Fehr & Christian Habermann, 2008. "Risk Sharing and Efficiency Implications of Progressive Pension Arrangements," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(2), pages 419-443, June.
    13. Montserrat Guillén & Jean Pinquet, 2008. "Long-Term Care: Risk Description of a Spanish Portfolio and Economic Analysis of the Timing of Insurance Purchase," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 33(4), pages 659-672, October.
    14. Sarah Brown & Lisa Farrell & Mark N. Harris & John G. Sessions, 2006. "Risk preference and employment contract type," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 169(4), pages 849-863, October.
    15. Vasia Panousi, 2008. "Capital Taxation with Entrepreneurial Risk," 2008 Meeting Papers 36, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Roger Hartley & Gauthier Lanot & Ian Walker, 2014. "Who Really Wants To Be A Millionaire? Estimates Of Risk Aversion From Gameshow Data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 861-879, September.
    17. Botond Koszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2007. "Reference-Dependent Risk Attitudes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1047-1073, September.
    18. Marie-Claire Villeval & Nabanita Datta Gupta & Anders Poulsen, 2005. "Male and Female Competitive Behavior - Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 0512, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    19. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Jonathan A. Parker, 2005. "Optimal Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1092-1118, September.
    20. Olivia S. Mitchell & James F. Moore, "undated". "Retirement Wealth Accumulation and Decumulation: New Developments and Outstanding Opportunities," Pension Research Council Working Papers 97-8, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.

    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:eej:eeconj:v:32:y:2006:i:1:p:67-81. 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: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.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.