IRAs and Household Saving

This paper examines the effects of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) on private and national saving. We construct a formal model of dynamic utility maximization that generates closed-form equations for IRA and other saving. Our empirical estimates indicate that raising the annual IRA contribution limit between 1983 and 1986 would have resulted in little, if any, increase in national saving. Results from sensitivity analysis imply substantially smaller effects on national saving than most previous researchers have estimated. Our results are consistent with new evidence we present indicating considerable potential among IRA holders to shift taxable forms of saving into IRAs