A fundamental question in personal finance is deciding when to retire. This article is a theoretical investigation within a conventional life-cycle setting. It finds two closed-form solutions to the retirement timing problem. One solution, based on an isoelastic form of the utility function and...

A closed from solution to the retirement timing problem is obtained, and its comparative-statics implications are derived. Of the nine comprative-statics results presented here, three amount to confirmation of ones obtained previously by Mitchell and Fields, and the remainder are new.