There is much debate over whether the life-cycle model of consumption can explain consumption growth patterns patterns observed in household level data sources. We argue that once one departs from simple classroom example, or 'stripped down life-cycle model', the empirical model for consumption...

Recent studies have explored the possibility that limited participation in asset markets, and the stock market in particular, might explain the lack of correspondence between the sample moments of the Intertemporal Marginal Rate of Substitution and asset returns. We estimate ownership...

The adequacy of household saving for retirement has become a policy issue all around the world. The UK and US have been in the vanguard of those countries that have tried to encourage retirement saving by providing tax-favoured treatment for particular savings accounts. We consider empirical...

This paper examines changes in health and disability related transfers in the UK over the last thirty years, and describes how they are related to changes in labour force participation. The objective is to present a comprehensive description of the reforms to the institutional setting, along...

This paper tries to assess whether or not we have any empirical evidence of links between early retirement and youth unemployment. Most economists would today dismiss the idea immediately as another version of the naïve 'lump-of-labor fallacy'. In its most basic form, this proposition holds...

This paper examines evidence from the British Household Panel Study on the distribution of financial wealth amongst benefit units in 2000. It also provides some analysis of the links between financial wealth, pensions and housing wealth. For part of the sample, the data also allow a comparison...

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In this paper we ask whether households are saving enough for their retirement. We use data on income, expenditure and expenditure components to analyse patterns of behaviour at and around the time of retirement. For successive date-of-birth cohorts we compare periods of unemployment to periods...

In this paper we describe the household wealth distribution in the US and UK, and compare both wealth inequality and the form in which wealth is held. Unconditionally, there are large differences in financial wealth between the two countries at the top fifth of the wealth distribution. And even...

<p>We compare the key assumptions underpinning estimates of the pension wealth of ELSA respondents to outcomes over the period from 2002-03 to 2004-05. We find that many of these assumptions have, on average, proved cautious or reasonable. Improving pension wealth calculations using this new...</p>