Under current Social Security rules, a newly retired worker can affect the age structure of benefits that he or she will receive by choosing when to file for a claim for benefits: the longer the claim is deferred, the greater the monthly benefit will be. This article examines the alternatives...

This paper compares the automatic dissaving of annuity wealth with the discretionary dissaving of marketable wealth that would result from life-cycle consumption behavior by retired persons. In simulations of a life-cycle model based on the isoelastic utility function and realistic parameter...