In short, Cooper tells us not to worry about our current account or its underlying causes. I have a much darker and, I believe, more accurate view of our current account deficit. While I agree with much of what Cooper says, I disagree most strongly with his central thesis that the current...

In Australia, we debated the issue of sustainability of current account deficits extensively during the 1980s. A lot of the arguments that are being aired at the moment bear a striking similarity to the debate that occurred in Australia throughout the 1980s. Now, two decades on, by and large,...

Two contemporary issues provide reason to focus on national saving and investment: the debate over public pensions, and pensions more generally, in all rich countries; and the large global current account imbalances, conceptually the difference between national savings and domestic investment....

Long gone are the days when most American workers could rely on their employers to manage their retirement savings. Today, most people handle their retirement portfolios themselves, gaining the right and responsibility to determine their own best strategies. Research on retirement planning...

Building and maintaining financial security is increasingly difficult for a growing portion of American households. Wealth is less prevalent in middle-class households and increasing among the already well-to-do. At the same time, poverty is growing and concentrating disproportionately among the...

Most defined contribution pension plans pay benefits as lump sums, yet the US Treasury has recently encouraged firms to protect retirees from outliving their assets by converting a portion of their plan balances into longevity income annuities (LIA). These are deferred annuities which initiate...

This paper examines two behavioral factors that diminish people's ability to value a life-time income stream or annuity, drawing on a survey of about 4,000 adults in a U.S. nationally representative sample. By experimentally varying the degree of complexity, we provide the first causal evidence...