Maximum Withdrawal Rates : An Empirical and Global Perspective

Standard analysis of retirement strategies involves evaluating their failure rate. One of the shortcomings of this approach is that a strategy may have a low failure rate and at the same time leave large unintended bequests. Maximum withdrawal rates, by definition, exhaust a portfolio by the end of the retirement period, thus leaving no bequest; they can be used both to assess the likelihood of sustaining any chosen level of inflation-adjusted withdrawals, and more generally to evaluate retirement strategies. This article provides a comprehensive historical perspective on maximum withdrawal rates considering 11 asset allocations, 21 countries, and 115 years