We estimate the effect of pension reforms on households' expectations of retirement outcomes and private wealth accumulation decisions exploiting a decade of intense Italian pension reforms as a source of exogenous variation in expected pension wealth. The Survey of Household Income and Wealth,...

Recent models with liquidity constraints and impatience emphasize that consumers use savings to buffer income fluctuations. When wealth is below an optimal target, consumers try to increase their buffer stock of wealth by saving more. When it is above target, they increase consumption. This...

We review savings trends in Italy, summarizing available empirical evidence on Italians' motives to save, relying on macroeconomic indicators as well as on data drawn from the Bank of Italy's Survey of Household Income and Wealth from 1984 to 2004. The macroeconomic data indicate that...

We study the relation between cognitive abilities and stockholding using the recent Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which has detailed data on wealth and portfolio composition of individuals aged 50+ in 11 European countries and three indicators of cognitive abilities:...

We present an intertemporal portfolio choice model where individuals invest in financial literacy, save, allocate their wealth between a safe and a risky asset, and receive a pension when they retire. Financial literacy affects the excess return and the cost of stock market participation. Since...

In 2000 Italy replaced its traditional system of severance pay for public employees with a new system. Under the old regime, severance pay was proportional to the final salary before retirement; under the new regime it is proportional to lifetime earnings. This reform entails substantial losses...

Recent models with liquidity constraints and impatience emphasize that consumers use savings to buffer incomefluctuations. When wealth is below an optimal target, consumers try to increase their buffer stock of wealth bysaving more, while, if wealth is above target, they increase consumption....