A substantial literature has developed models of optimal consumption and asset allocation based on the assumption that stocks and bonds have fixed returns, with normal independent, identically distributed disturbances. Households optimally rebalance from stocks to bonds as they age, reflecting...

Beginning this year, people can convert all or a portion of their traditional IRA balances into Roth IRAs. Although this new allowance for conversions applies explicitly to traditional IRAs, it also applies indirectly to balances in 401(k) plans that workers hold with former employers. These old...

Despite the recovery of the stock market since the financial crisis, many retirees have seen significant reductions in their wealth relative to pre crisis expectations and substantial declines in investment income due to very low short-term interest rates. What really matters, though, is the...

Today, the retirement income system — comprising Social Security and employer-sponsored pension plans — is contracting. To compensate, people need to work longer to ensure an adequate income over many years throughout retirement. A few additional years in the labor force can make a big...

The rate of national saving declined sharply in the 1980s. Some of the explanations for this puzzling performance have considered the influence of capital gains, a reduction in the need for precautionary saving, a decline in the need for retirement saving, the effect of slower income growth, and...

While the prospect for equity values naturally concerns traders and investors, it also is a concern for public policy. Because investors’ wealth depends on the value of corporate equity, the demand for consumption goods can vary with the price of stocks. The valuation of corporations’...