Which spouse is more knowledgeable about the household's finances in mixed‐sex married couple households? The answer to this question can be inferred from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which assigns the title of “respondent” to the person the household indicates is more...

Lack of financial sophistication has been suggested as a cause of retirement plan failure. We extend previous studies of retirement adequacy by testing the effect of financial sophistication proxies on projected retirement adequacy, using the 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) dataset. We...

The relationship between meeting the Capital Accumulation Ratio Guideline and retirement adequacy was investigated. About 63% of the households had a consistent relationship between meeting the 25% ratio guideline and being adequately prepared for retirement, with 46% of households both meeting...

This study investigates financial risk aversion using an improved measure based on income gambles and rigorously related to optimal portfolio choices. The new measure modifies a previous measure by adding graphical presentations to clarify the impact of different income choices. We compared the...

This study explored saving behavior among low-income households through the institutional theory of saving behavior by (1) determining asset differences between saving and non-saving households, (2) exploring factors related to saving behavior, and (3) identifying differences between two saving...

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the increase in the proportion of U.S. households with financial obligations greater than 40% of income was due to mistakes or over-optimism. The proportion of households paying more than 40% of income for debt, rent, vehicle leases, property...

Normative analyses of household financial decisions typically assume parameters of the household utility function. Some general issues on parameter assumptions for normative analysis are discussed in this study. We review selected normative household analyses appearing in finance and economics...

This study examines the factors affecting household saving, extending previous research by adding measures of consumer optimism to the variables previous investigators used to analyze saving behavior. In addition to expectations about household income and the economy, we create an optimism...