IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6185.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Household Portfolio Allocation Over the Life Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • James M. Poterba
  • Andrew A. Samwick

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between age and portfolio structure for households in the US. We focus on both the probability that households of different ages own particular portfolio assets and the fraction of their net worth allocated to each asset category. We distinguish between age and cohort effects using data from the repeated cross-sections of the Federal Reserve Board's Surveys of Consumer Finances. We present two broad conclusions. First, there are important differences across asset classes in both the age-specific probabilities of asset ownership and in the portfolio shares of different assets at different ages. The notnion that all assets can be treated as identical from the standpoint of analyzing household wealth accumulation is not supported by the data. Institutional factors, asset liquidity, and evolving investor tastes must be recognized in modeling asset demand. These factors could affect analyses of overall household saving as well as the composition of this saving. Second, there are evident differences in the asset ownership probabilities of different birth cohorts. Currently, older households were more likely to hold corporate stock, and less likely to hold tax-exempt bonds, than younger households at any given age. These differences across cohorts are important to recognize when analyzing asset accumulation profiles.

Suggested Citation

  • James M. Poterba & Andrew A. Samwick, 1997. "Household Portfolio Allocation Over the Life Cycle," NBER Working Papers 6185, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6185
    Note: AG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6185.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wolff, Edward N., 1994. "Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: 1962-1983 and 1983-1989," Working Papers 94-03, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    2. Richard T. Curtin & Thomas Juster & James N. Morgan, 1989. "Survey Estimates of Wealth: An Assessment of Quality," NBER Chapters, in: The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth, pages 473-552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. John B. Shoven & David A. Wise, 1998. "The Taxation of Pensions: A Shelter Can Become a Trap," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in the Economics of Aging, pages 173-212, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. John Y. Campbell & João F. Cocco & Francisco J. Gomes & Pascal J. Maenhout, 2001. "Investing Retirement Wealth: A Life-Cycle Model," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 439-482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Bodie, Zvi & Merton, Robert C. & Samuelson, William F., 1992. "Labor supply flexibility and portfolio choice in a life cycle model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 427-449.
    6. Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 1990. "But They Don't Want to Reduce Housing Equity," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in the Economics of Aging, pages 13-32, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Karen Pence & John Sabelhaus, 1999. "Household Saving in the '90s: Evidence from Cross-Section Wealth Surveys: Technical Paper 1999-3," Working Papers 13345, Congressional Budget Office.
    8. Kimball, Miles S, 1993. "Standard Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 589-611, May.
    9. Andrew A. Samwick, 1996. "Tax Shelters and Passive Losses after the Tax Reform Act of 1986," NBER Chapters, in: Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation, pages 193-233, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Canner, Niko & Mankiw, N Gregory & Weil, David N, 1997. "An Asset Allocation Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 181-191, March.
    11. James M. Poterba & Steven F. Venti, 1998. "Implications of Rising Personal Retirement Saving," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in the Economics of Aging, pages 125-172, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Martin Feldstein & James M. Poterba, 1996. "Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld96-1.
    13. Andrew A. Samwick & Jonathan Skinner, 1998. "How Will Defined Contribution Pension Plans Affect Retirement Income?," NBER Working Papers 6645, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. David A. Wise, 1990. "Issues in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise90-1.
    15. Poterba, James M & Venti, Steven F & Wise, David A, 1994. "Targeted Retirement Saving and the Net Worth of Elderly Americans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 180-185, May.
    16. 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.
    17. repec:bla:revinw:v:45:y:1999:i:4:p:435-53 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. David A. Wise, 1998. "Frontiers in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise98-1.
    19. Zvi Bodie & William Samuelson, 1989. "Labor Supply Flexibility and Portfolio Choice," NBER Working Papers 3043, 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. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Ludwig, Alexander & Sommer, Mathias, 2005. "Aging and asset prices," Papers 07-29, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    2. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    3. Gary V. Engelhardt, 2000. "Have 401(k)s Raised Household Saving? Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 33, McMaster University.
    4. Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 2001. "Choice, Chance, and Wealth Dispersion at Retirement," NBER Chapters, in: Aging Issues in the United States and Japan, pages 25-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    6. Andersson, Björn, 2001. "Portfolio Allocation over the Life Cycle: Evidence from Swedish Household Data," Working Paper Series 2001:4, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    7. 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.
    8. Glenn W. Boyle & Graeme A. Guthrie, 2005. "Human Capital and Popular Investment Advice," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(2), pages 139-164.
    9. Annamaria Lusardi, 2000. "Explaining Why So Many Households Do Not Save," Working Papers 0001, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    10. James M. Poterba & Joshua Rauh & Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 2009. "Lifecycle Asset Allocation Strategies and the Distribution of 401(k) Retirement Wealth," NBER Chapters, in: Developments in the Economics of Aging, pages 15-50, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. John Y. Campbell, 2006. "Household Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1553-1604, August.
    12. 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.
    13. Hilary W. Hoynes & Daniel L. McFadden, 1996. "The Impact of Demographics on Housing and Nonhousing Wealth in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Effects of Aging in the United States and Japan, pages 153-194, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Luis M. Viceira, 2001. "Optimal Portfolio Choice for Long‐Horizon Investors with Nontradable Labor Income," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 433-470, April.
    15. Tami Gurley-Calvez & Josephine Lugovskyy, 2019. "The role of entrepreneurial risk in financial portfolio allocation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 839-858, December.
    16. Tsai, Hui-Ju & Wu, Yangru, 2014. "Optimal portfolio choice for investors with industry-specific labor income risks," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 429-436.
    17. Purvi Sevak, 2002. "Wealth Shocks and Retirement Timing: Evidence from the Nineties," Working Papers wp027, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    18. Poterba, James M., 2002. "Taxation, risk-taking, and household portfolio behavior," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 17, pages 1109-1171, Elsevier.
    19. Steven J. Davis & Paul Willen, 2013. "Occupation-Level Income Shocks and Asset Returns: Their Covariance and Implications for Portfolio Choice," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(03n04), pages 1-53.
    20. Boyle, Glenn & Guthrie, Graeme, 2005. "Human Capital and Popular Investment Advice," Working Paper Series 18962, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    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:nbr:nberwo:6185. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.