This paper analyzes retirement saving and portfolio choice in the United States, Italy, and the Netherlands. While these countries enjoy roughly the same standard of living, they vary widely in their institutional organization of retirement income provisions. Building on extensions of the life...

This paper discusses the role of annuities in retirement planning. It begins by explaining the basic theory underlying the individual welfare gains available from annuitizing resources in retirement. It then contrasts these findings with the empirical findings that so few consumers behave in a...

This paper shows that previous analyses of IRA-type plans have miscalculated their effect on tax revenue and therefore on national saving by ignoring their impact on corporate tax payments. Recognizing the important effect of IRA plans on corporate tax revenue changes previous conclusions about...