In 1997, Mexico transformed its pay-as-you-go social-security system to a fully funded system with personal retirement accounts, including management fees. This paper examines changes in retirement wealth resulting from this new system. It found management fees drained a significant proportion...

Irregular withdrawals from IRAs and DC pensions are not included in standard measures of household income in the CPS or Health and Retirement Study. Yet, among retirees such withdrawals can supplement regular retirement income to finance consumption. It has been difficult to assess their...

We study whether individuals with different personality traits systematically exhibit different retirement trajectories. We find weak direct associations between personality and employment transitions. On the other hand, personality does contribute indirectly to these transitions by moderating...

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...

As workers age, their physical and cognitive abilities tend to decline. This could lead to a mismatch between workers' resources and the demands of their jobs, restricting future work. We use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) linked to detailed occupational...

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...