According to economic theory, well-being or utility depends on consumption. However, at the household level, total consumption is rarely measured because its collection requires a great deal of survey time. As a result income has been widely used to assess economic well-being and poverty rates....

We define saving regret as the wish in hindsight to have saved more earlier in life. We measured saving regret and possible determinants in a survey of a probability sample of those aged 60-79. We investigate two main causes of saving regret: procrastination along with other psychological...

This paper presents results based on a survey fielded in the RAND American Life Panel that queried older workers about their current, desired, and expected job characteristics, and about how certain job characteristics would affect their retirement. Having access to flexible work hours was found...

The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires that consumption be continuous over retirement; yet prior research based on partial measures of consumption or on synthetic panels indicates that spending drops at retirement, a result that has been called the retirement-consumption...

Background: The fact that many individuals inexplicably fail to buy stocks, despite the historical evidence for a good return on investment has been referred to as the stock market puzzle. However, measurements of the subjective probability of a gain show that people are more pessimistic than...

Beginning in May 2009 we fielded a monthly Internet survey designed to measure total household spending as the aggregate of about 40 spending components. This paper reports on a number of outcomes from 30 waves of data collection. These outcomes include sample attrition, indicators of data...

In this paper we present evidence from high-frequency data collections dedicated to tracking the effects of the financial crisis and great recession on American households. These data come from surveys that we conducted in the American Life Panel - an Internet survey run by RAND Labor and...

The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires "consumption smoothing." According to previous results based on partial spending and on synthetic panels, British and U.S. households apparently reduce consumption at retirement. The reduction cannot be explained by the simple one-good...

Physical and cognitive abilities of older workers decline with age, which can cause a mismatch between abilities and job demands, potentially leading to early retirement. We link longitudinal Health and Retirement Study data to O*NET occupational characteristics to estimate to what extent...

The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires consumption smoothing.' However, British and U.S. households apparently reduce consumption at retirement and the reduction cannot be explained by the life-cycle model. An interpretation is that retirees are surprised by the inadequacy...