We explore the proposition that expected longevity affects retirement decisions and accumulated wealth using micro data drawn from the Health and Retirement Study for the United States. We use data on a person's subjective probability of survival to age 75 as a proxy for their prospective...

We propose a rich model of household behavior to study the effect of two important policies: mortgage interest tax deduction and mandatory mortgage amortization. These policies have attracted some controversy, first because they are conceived to increase overall saving, an objective that the...

Several states have recently attempted to boost retirement saving by adopting "auto-IRA" policies that require employers not currently offering an employer-sponsored retirement plan (ESRP) to either (1) establish an ESRP or (2) enroll employees in state-facilitated Individual Retirement Accounts...

Medium- and long-run dynamics undermine the effect of automatic enrollment and default savings-rate auto-escalation on retirement savings. Our analysis of nine 401(k) plans incorporates the facts that employees frequently leave firms (often before matching contributions from their employer have...

U.S. employers and the federal government devote over 1.5% of GDP annually toward promoting defined contribution (DC) retirement saving. Using a new employer-employee linked dataset covering millions of Americans, we show that this system of saving incentives benefits White workers and those...

This paper documents the life-cycle patterns of household portfolios in Canada, and investigates several hypotheses about asset accumulation and allocation. Inferences are drawn from the 1999 Survey of Financial Security, with some comparisons to earlier wealth surveys from 1977 and 1984. I find...

This paper examines the incentives created by the 529 and Coverdell tax-advantaged savings accounts. I find that the advantages of the 529 and Coverdell rise sharply with income, for three reasons. First, those with the highest marginal tax rates benefit the most from sheltering income, gaining...

This study explores how the health of Union Army recruits while in the service affected their wealth accumulation through 1870. Wartime wounds and exposure to combat, measured by the company mortality from wounds, had strong negative effects on subsequent savings. Variables on illnesses while in...

I use a field experiment in rural Kenya to study how temporary incentives to save impact long-run economic outcomes. Study participants randomly selected to receive large temporary interest rates on an individual bank account had significantly more income and assets 2.5 years after the interest...