We utilize data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to study borrowing decisions and other factors related to the run-up in housing prices in 1999-2007, their precipitous decline in 2007-2009, and how they contributed to mortgage distress and foreclosures as of 2009-2011. Difficulties...

In this paper we revisit two well-known facts regarding lifecycle expenditures. The first is the familiar “hump” shaped lifecycle profile of nondurable expenditures. We document that the behavior of total nondurables masks surprising heterogeneity in the lifecycle profile of individual...

This paper shows that households who enter retirement with low wealth consistently followed non-permanent income consumption rules during their working years. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), household wealth in 1989 is predicted for a sample of 50-65 year olds using both current...

In order to receive many forms of government assistance, a household?s assets must be below the federal or state mandated limits. Recent theoretical work has shown that such means-tested welfare programs can explain the low levels of saving observed in the data for households with relatively low...

The responsibility to save and contribute to a pension is increasingly left to the individual worker. Understanding how households save and prepare for retirement is of paramount importance. There is concern in the U.S. that many families have little or no wealth even close to retirement. In...

Of particular interest in the present economic environment is whether access to credit is changing peoples’ indebtedness over time, particularly as they approach retirement. This project analyzes older individuals’ debt, debt management practices, and financial fragility using data from the...

This study uses data from the module on planning and financial literacy devised for the Health and Retirement Study in 2004. It finds that women display much lower levels of literacy than respondents in the total sample. Lack of literacy has implications for planning: women who are less...

In this paper, I estimate the extent of precautionary accumulation using data from a new survey: the US Health and Retirement Study, which samples older households. I account for many determinants of wealth, not only past economic circumstances and expectations about future resources, but also...

In the past two decades the widely reported personal saving rate in the United States has dropped from double digits to below zero. First, we attempt to account for the decline in the National Income and ProductAccounts (NIPA) saving rate. The macroeconomic literature suggests that about half of...

Economists are beginning to investigate the causes and consequences of financial illiteracy to better understand why retirement planning is lacking and why so many households arrive close to retirement with little or no wealth. Our review reveals that many households are unfamiliar with even the...