The view that there is an ‘under-savings’ problem in the UK domestic sector has had an important bearing on the contemporary agenda for policy reform. This paper considers the temporal variation of household expenditure and disposable income described by micro-data observed during...

This study considers the efficacy of a tax incentivised savings scheme in context of decision making rigidities. Analysis is based on a classical life-cycle model of savings and investment decisions, augmented with a salience cost over participation in Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)...

Most empirical studies of savings behaviour that explicitly take account of the influence of uncertainty consider for identification data that describe the evolution of circumstances observed during an appreciable period of the life-course. Here we report results obtained for a dynamic...

There is a growing consensus based on extensive experimental evidence that people are generally influenced by myopia when making decisions of an intertemporal nature.

Recent pensions policy debate in the United Kingdom has emphasised the role of behavioural myopia in justifying state involvement in retirement provision (e.g. Pensions Commission, 2005, pp. 68-69, and op.cit.). In this regard, it appears that public debate has gotten slightly ahead of the...

The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) is a new pension scheme that will be introduced for employees on modest incomes in the UK from 2012. This paper draws out the implications of the NEST, focusing upon low-paid employees and their employers using data from the Annual Survey of Hours and...

This paper describes a fully behavioural microsimulation model that has recently been developed at the National Institute for considering responses to changes in pension policy of household savings and labour supply. The model generates household decisions regarding labour/leisure, and...

This paper describes a structural dynamic microsimulation model that generates individual-specific data over a range of demographic and economic characteristics at annual intervals over the life-course. The model is specifically designed to analyse the distributional implications of policy...

Although many countries are now using skilled migration to offset declining fertility and increased longevity, there is thin empirical evidence concerning the effects of alternative approaches to managing the skilled migrant intake. This study focusses on the effects on migrant labour market...