This paper investigates how risk attitudes change over the life course. We study the age trajectory of risk attitudes all the way from early adulthood until old age, in large representative panel data sets from the Netherlands and Germany. Age patterns are generally difficult to identify...

This paper examines the influence of both trust and sociability on stock market participation and their implications for international differences in stockholding. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe supplemented with information on regional trust from the World...

We use two administrative data sets, from a large internet broker and from a major commercial bank, together with regional data to ask three questions: (i) whether financial advisors tend to be matched with poorer, uninformed investors or with richer, experienced but presumably busy investors;...

This paper uses international panel data on 55 countries from 1995 to 2008, merging indicators of financial literacy with a large set of macroeconomic and institutional variables. Results show that there is substantial heterogeneity of financial and economic competence across countries, and that...

We explicitly derive and explore the optimal consumption and portfolio policies of a loss- averse individual who endogenously updates his reference level over time. We find that he protects his current consumption by delaying painful reductions in consumption after a drop in wealth, and...

This paper quantifies the business cycle effects and distributional implications of pension fund restoration policy after the economy has been hit by a financial shock. We extend a canonical New-Keynesian dynamic general equilibrium model with a tractable demographic structure and a pension...

I study the relationship between household saving and pensions, and estimate both the displacement effect of pensions on private saving and the precautionary saving effect due to uncertainty in pension income. Using a lifecycle framework, the consumption function depends on expected pension...

In 2000 Italy replaced its traditional system of severance pay for public employees with a new system. Under the old regime, severance pay was proportional to the final salary before retirement; under the new regime it is proportional to lifetime earnings. This reform entails substantial losses...

Prior studies disagree regarding the effectiveness of financial literacy programs, especially those offered in the workplace. To explain such measurement differences in evaluation and outcomes, we employ a stochastic life cycle model with endogenous financial knowledge accumulation to...

This paper measures how financial shocks - equity market, interest rate or inflation shocks - affect different generations of participants in Dutch collective pension schemes. We show that an individualized scheme, by using a life cycle investment strategy, can largely replicate the allocation...