IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v66y1984i1p1-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumption during Retirement: The Missing Link in the Life Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Hamermesh, Daniel S

Abstract

This study presents the first evidence on the relation of consumption to lifetime wealth, based on data from the 1973 and 1975 Retirement History Survey that have been linked to Social Security earnings records. Nearly 500 white, married, fully retired couples ages 62-69 form the basis of the analysis. On average their consumption early in retirement exceeds by 14 percent the income that their financial, pension and Social Security wealth can generate. This implies that their saving, both private and through Social Security, is insufficient to sustain consumption throughout the rest of their lives. Additional evidence based on changes in spending between 1973 and 1975 shows that these households respond by reducing their real consumption at a rate sufficient to generate positive changes in net financial worth within a few years after retirement. These two pieces of evidence can be rationalized by a rate of time preference much higher than the interest rate, coupled with either a bequest motive or uncertainty about the length of life. They also imply that, even when combined with private pensions and savings, Social Security in the United States today does not enable most recipients to maintain their living standard at the levels they enjoyed before they retired.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1984. "Consumption during Retirement: The Missing Link in the Life Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 66(1), pages 1-7, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:66:y:1984:i:1:p:1-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6535%28198402%2966%3A1%3C1%3ACDRTML%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael D. Hurd & John B. Shoven, 1983. "The Economic Status of the Elderly," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 359-398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Davies, James B, 1981. "Uncertain Lifetime, Consumption, and Dissaving in Retirement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(3), pages 561-577, June.
    3. Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B., 2002. "Social security," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 32, pages 2245-2324, Elsevier.
    4. Sobol, Marion Gross, 1979. "Factors Influencing Private Capital Accumulation on the "Eve of Retirement"," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(4), pages 585-593, November.
    5. Gilbert Ghez & Gary S. Becker, 1975. "The Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number ghez75-1.
    6. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Spivak, Avia & Summers, Lawrence H, 1982. "The Adequacy of Savings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1056-1069, December.
    7. Alan S. Blinder & Roger H. Gordon & Donald E. Wise, 1983. "Social Security, Bequests and the Life Cycle Theory of Saving: Cross-sectional Tests," International Economic Association Series, in: Franco Modigliani & Richard Hemming (ed.), The Determinants of National Saving and Wealth, chapter 4, pages 89-122, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Levhari, David & Mirman, Leonard J, 1977. "Savings and Consumption with an Uncertain Horizon," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(2), pages 265-281, April.
    9. Gilbert Ghez & Gary S. Becker, 1975. "The Allocation of Goods Over the Life Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: The Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle, pages 46-82, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Martin Feldstein, 1983. "Social Security Benefits and the Accumulation of Pre-retirement Wealth," International Economic Association Series, in: Franco Modigliani & Richard Hemming (ed.), The Determinants of National Saving and Wealth, chapter 1, pages 3-23, Palgrave Macmillan.
    11. Mervyn A. King & Louis Dicks-Mireaux, 1981. "Asset Holdings and the Life Cycle," NBER Working Papers 0614, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Gilbert Ghez & Gary S. Becker, 1975. "The Allocation of Time Over the Life Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: The Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle, pages 83-132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Mirer, Thad W, 1979. "The Wealth-Age Relation among the Aged," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 435-443, June.
    14. King, M A & Dicks-Mireaux, L-D L, 1982. "Asset Holdings and the Life-Cycle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(366), pages 247-267, 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. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1987. "Uncertain Lifetimes, Pensions, and Individual Saving," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in Pension Economics, pages 175-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Hubbard, R. Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1994. "The importance of precautionary motives in explaining individual and aggregate saving," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 59-125, June.
    3. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1984. "'Precautionary' Saving Revisited: Social Security, Individual Welfare, and the Capital Stock," NBER Working Papers 1430, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. John P. Rust, 1989. "A Dynamic Programming Model of Retirement Behavior," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Aging, pages 359-404, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Michael D. Hurd, 1989. "Issues and Results from Research on the Elderly I: Economic Status (Part I of III Parts)," NBER Working Papers 3018, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Orazio P. Attanasio & Hilary Williamson Hoynes, 2000. "Differential Mortality and Wealth Accumulation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(1), pages 1-29.
    7. HILDEBRAND Vincent, 2001. "Wealth Accumulation of US Households: What do we learn from the SIPP data?," IRISS Working Paper Series 2001-01, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    8. Michael J. Boskin, 1987. "Concepts and Measures of Federal Deficits and Debt and Their Impact on Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 2332, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Feigenbaum, James, 2008. "Can mortality risk explain the consumption hump?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 844-872, September.
    10. B. Douglas Bernheim, 1987. "Dissaving after Retirement: Testing the Pure Life Cycle Hypothesis," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in Pension Economics, pages 237-280, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Mervyn A. King, 1983. "The Economics of Saving," NBER Working Papers 1247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Orazio Attanasio, 1994. "Personal Saving in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: International Comparisons of Household Saving, pages 57-124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Marc Robinson, 1983. "Social Security and Physical Capital: An Interpretation of the Evidence, Lessons and Outlook," UCLA Economics Working Papers 307, UCLA Department of Economics.
    14. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1985. "Expectations, Life Expectancy, and Economic Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(2), pages 389-408.
    15. B. Douglas Bernheim & Jonathan Skinner & Steven Weinberg, 2001. "What Accounts for the Variation in Retirement Wealth among U.S. Households?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 832-857, September.
    16. Eatzaz Ahmad, 1995. "Progressive Taxation and the Life‐Cycle Model: An Application of the Theory of Firm," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 71(3), pages 248-258, September.
    17. Mikhail Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2006. "Designing Optimal Disability Insurance: A Case for Asset Testing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 257-279, April.
    18. Louis Dicks-Mireaux & Mervyn A. King, 1982. "Pension Wealth and Household Savings: Tests of Robustness," NBER Working Papers 0962, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. R. Glenn Hubbard & Kenneth L. Judd, 1985. "Social Security and Individual Welfare: Precautionary Saving, LiquidityConstraints, and the Payroll Tax," NBER Working Papers 1736, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, 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:tpr:restat:v:66:y:1984:i:1:p:1-7. 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: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.