We use a life cycle model of consumption and portfolio choice to study the effects of social security on the investment decisions of households for the European case. Our model is mainly based on the one developed by Cocco, Gomes, and Maenhout (2005). We extend it by unemployment risk using...

Rich people, women, and healthy people live longer. We document that this heterogeneity in life expectancy is large, and we use an estimated structural model to assess its effect on the elderly's saving. We find that the differences in life expectancy related to observable factors such as...

This paper constructs a rich model of saving for retired single people. Our framework allows for bequest motives and heterogeneity in medical expenses and life expectancies. We estimate the model using AHEAD data and the method of simulated moments. The data show that out-of-pocket medical...

Neoclassical economics assumes that provision for the future is simply a matter of the will to save enough of one's current income. However, saving requires the availability of a secure instrument. Historically, the availability of such instruments has always been a problem. The social security...

Faced with ageing populations, OECD governments are seeking policies to increase individual retirement saving. In April 2001, the UK government introduced Stakeholder Pensions – a low cost retirement saving vehicle. The reform also changed the structure of tax-relieved contribution ceilings,...

Using three major UK pension reforms as natural experiments we investigate the relationship between pension saving and discretionary private savings. Unlike most differences-in -differences approaches which rely on average differences between the control and the treatment group, we use economic...