The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires that consumption be continuous over retirement; yet prior research based on partial measures of consumption or on synthetic panels indicates that spending drops at retirement, a result that has been called the retirement-consumption...

This study finds that on average those just past the usual retirement age are adequately prepared for retirement in that they will be able to follow a path of consumption that begins at their current level of consumption and then follows an age-pattern similar to that of current retirees. That...

According to economic theory, well-being or utility depends on consumption. However, at the household level, total consumption is rarely well measured because its collection requires a great deal of survey time. As a result income has been widely used to assess well-being and poverty rates. Yet,...

The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires "consumption smoothing." According to previous results based on partial spending and on synthetic panels, British and U.S. households apparently reduce consumption at retirement. The reduction cannot be explained by the simple one-good...

According to economic theory, well-being or utility depends on consumption. However, at the household level, total consumption is rarely measured because its collection requires a great deal of survey time. As a result income has been widely used to assess economic well-being and poverty rates....

The theory of home production suggests substitutability between market consumption and home production. The current paper estimates the intratemporal elasticity between home production and market consumption from within-person variation. Shocks in houseprices induced by the Great Recession are...

The income replacement rate (income immediately following retirement divided by income immediately preceding retirement) has become widely used as a measure of economic preparation for retirement. Yet a number of relevant issues are not adequately captured by the replacement rate concept. These...

Because of data limitations, the quantification of consumption smoothing in response to economic shocks has been challenging to investigate empirically. We used monthly data on total household spending, income, and labor force participation to estimate the effects of unemployment on household...

Shocks to income and wealth decrease the household's monetary budget available. As a consequence, households respond by decreasing consumption spending. Income shocks, such as unexpected unemployment and retirement, also increase the time-budget available in addition to decreasing the monetary...

We define saving regret as the wish in hindsight to have saved more earlier in life. We measured saving regret and possible determinants in a survey of a probability sample of those aged 60-79. We investigate two main causes of saving regret: procrastination along with other psychological...