How much should a family save for retirement and for the kids' college education? How much insurance should they buy? How should they allocate their portfolio across different assets? What should a company choose as the default asset allocation for a mandatory retirement saving plan? We believe...

How much should a family save for retirement and for the kids’ college education? How much insurance should they buy? How should they allocate their portfolio across different assets? What should a company choose as the default asset allocation for a mandatory retirement saving plan? We...

This paper explores the application of contingent claims analysis (CCA) to two quot;hotquot; issues in life-cycle finance: (1) investing for retirement and (2) deciding when, if ever, to switch careers. Participants in individual retirement accounts do not have the time or the knowledge to make...

This article studies the behavior of an individual who can repeatedly alternate between two occupations. Such a career option is analogous to an exotic derivative security: an American reset option. Despite infinite opportunities to change occupations, an individual faced with mobility costs is...

Target-date funds are designed with some level of investment risk that declines over time as the target retirement date approaches. It is possible to design a safe target-date fund in terms of market risk — although in terms of meeting a target level of wealth at retirement (or income in...

Both investor contributions and investment returns determine retirement plan outcomes, but they have distinctive effects over the investor's lifecycle. Focusing on target-date funds (TDFs) in 401(k) plans, our research demonstrates that in the early stage, contributions are the primary...