IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mrr/papers/wp130.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financial Risk, Retirement, Saving and Investment

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Gustman

    (Dartmouth College and NBER)

  • Thomas Steinmeier

    (Texas Tech University)

Abstract

This paper considers the prospects for adding choice of portfolio composition to a life cycle model of retirement and saving, while preserving the ability of the model to continue to explain the course of saving and retirement. If eventually successful, such a modification might be used to improve understanding of retirement and saving behavior both under the current Social Security system, and under variations involving personal accounts. In particular we consider the implications of separating parameters that now reflect both risk aversion and time preference. We explore a number of barriers to developing a specification that is consistent with observed saving, retirement and investment choices. In our previous model with exponential consumption, individuals would hold portfolios exclusively in stocks, contrary to observation. Changing the exponent of consumption can reduce stock holdings below 100%, but at the cost of implausible retirement behavior. Introducing a separate parameter for risk aversion can restore plausible retirement behavior, but the pattern of stock holdings is too high, especially at younger ages, for plausible values of the risk aversion parameter. At the moment, no easy solution is at hand to this fundamental problem now being engaged by financial economists. This suggests that models of retirement and saving may, for the immediate future, be forced to constrain portfolio composition to correspond with levels observed in the data, postponing the inclusion of portfolio mix as a choice variable until further progress is made in modeling that behavior. This does not necessarily reduce the efficiency of life cycle models of retirement and saving. Rather it recognizes that portfolio choice may be influenced by behavior that is not fully consistent with that posed by a life cycle model. Individuals may, for example, be accepting recommendations from planners or firms that they would not otherwise follow if they fully understood how to balance risk and return in portfolio choice in the same way they balance risk and return in their saving and retirement decisions. If these behavioral considerations govern their portfolio choice, while retirement and saving are determined by life cycle considerations, a model that correctly constrains portfolio composition may in fact generate parameter estimates that accurately reflect the forces governing retirement and saving behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Gustman & Thomas Steinmeier, 2006. "Financial Risk, Retirement, Saving and Investment," Working Papers wp130, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
  • Handle: RePEc:mrr:papers:wp130
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp130.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francisco Gomes & Alexander Michaelides, 2005. "Optimal Life‐Cycle Asset Allocation: Understanding the Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 869-904, April.
    2. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2005. "Portfolio Choice over the Life-Cycle in the Presence of 'Trickle Down' Labor Income," NBER Working Papers 11247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 2002. "Retirement and the Stock Market Bubble," NBER Working Papers 9404, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Florian Zainhofer, 2007. "Life Cycle Portfolio Choice: A Swiss Perspective," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 143(II), pages 187-238, June.
    2. Claudio Campanale, 2011. "Learning, Ambiguity and Life-Cycle Portfolio Allocation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 339-367, April.
    3. Jialun Li & Kent Smetters, 2011. "Optimal Portfolio Choice with Wage-Indexed Social Security," NBER Working Papers 17025, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. John Y. Campbell, 2006. "Household Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1553-1604, August.
    5. Francisco Gomes & Alexander Michaelides, 2008. "Asset Pricing with Limited Risk Sharing and Heterogeneous Agents," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 415-448, January.
    6. Claudio Campanale, 2008. "Life-Cycle Portfolio Choice: The Role of Heterogeneity and Under-diversification," Working Papers. Serie AD 2008-06, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    7. John Y. Campbell, 2016. "Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 1-30, May.
    8. Robert J. Shiller, 2005. "The Life-Cycle Personal Accounts Proposal for Social Security: An Evaluation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1504, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    9. Mitchell, O.S. & Piggott, J., 2016. "Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic," 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 865-904, Elsevier.
    10. Joachim Inkmann & Alexander Michaelides, 2012. "Can the Life Insurance Market Provide Evidence for a Bequest Motive?," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 671-695, September.
    11. Robert Östling & Erik Lindqvist & David Cesarini & Joseph Briggs, 2016. "Wealth, Portfolio Allocations, and Risk Preference," 2016 Meeting Papers 1089, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Horneff, Vanya & Maurer, Raimond & Mitchell, Olivia S., 2023. "Do required minimum distribution 401(k) rules matter, and for whom? Insights from a lifecycle model," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    13. Horneff, Wolfram J. & Maurer, Raimond H. & Stamos, Michael Z., 2008. "Life-cycle asset allocation with annuity markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 3590-3612, November.
    14. Binswanger, J., 2008. "A Simple Bounded-Rationality Life Cycle Model," Discussion Paper 2008-13, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    15. Gomes, Francisco & Fugazza, Carolina & Campanale, Claudio, 2015. "Life-Cycle Portfolio choice with Liquid and Illiquid Assets," CEPR Discussion Papers 10369, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Bagliano, Fabio C. & Fugazza, Carolina & Nicodano, Giovanna, 2019. "Life-cycle portfolios, unemployment and human capital loss," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 325-340.
    17. repec:idb:brikps:365 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Fabio C. Bagliano & Carolina Fugazza & Giovanna Nicodano, 2014. "Optimal Life-Cycle Portfolios for Heterogeneous Workers," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2283-2323.
    19. Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Levy, Haim & Wolf, Avner, 2009. "Bonds versus stocks: Investors' age and risk taking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 817-830, September.
    20. Campbell, John Y. & Nosbusch, Yves, 2007. "Intergenerational risksharing and equilibrium asset prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2251-2268, November.
    21. Ilja Boelaars & Roel Mehlkopf, 2018. "Optimal risk-sharing in pension funds when stock and labor markets are co-integrated," DNB Working Papers 595, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.

    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:mrr:papers:wp130. 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: MRRC Administrator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isumius.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.