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Can Unexpected Retirement Explain The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle? Evidence For Subjective Retirement Expectations

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Melvin Stephens Jr. () (Center for Retirement Research)
Steven J. Haider

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Abstract

Previous research finds a systematic fall in consumption at retirement, even when these retirements are expected, which implies households do not behave as predicted by the lifecycle/ permanent income hypothesis. However, the workerís expected date of retirement is typically predicted using an instrument - age - that we show to be correlated with unexpected retirements and will therefore lead to biased estimates. In this paper, we use an alternative instrument for expected retirement: workersí own subjective beliefs of their expected retirement dates. We find that subjective retirement expectations provide strong predictive power for subsequent retirements above and beyond the impact of age on retirement probabilities. We still find, however, that consumption falls for workers who retire when expected although the estimated impact is 50 percent smaller when using retirement expectations as an instrument instead of age.

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Paper provided by Center for Retirement Research in its series Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College with number 2003-15.

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Date of creation: 29 Sep 2003
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Handle: RePEc:crr:crrwps:2003-15

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  2. Jappelli, Tullio & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2000. "Using subjective income expectations to test for excess sensitivity of consumption to predicted income growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 337-358, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-87, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. B. Douglas Bernheim, 1989. "The Timing of Retirement: A Comparison of Expectations and Realizations," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Aging, pages 335-358 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Jeff Dominitz, 1998. "Earnings Expectations, Revisions, And Realizations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 374-388, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. V. Kerry Smith & Donald H. Taylor Jr. & Frank A. Sloan, 2001. "Longevity Expectations and Death: Can People Predict Their Own Demise?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1126-1134, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
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  8. Shelly Lundberg & Richard Startz & Steven Stillman, 2001. "The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: A Marital Bargaining Approach," Working Papers 01-04, RAND Corporation Publications Department. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Michael D. Hurd & Kathleen McGarry, 1997. "The Predictive Validity of Subjective Probabilities of Survival," NBER Working Papers 6193, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2002. "Retirement Consumption: Insights from a Survey," NBER Working Papers 8735, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1984. "Consumption During Retirement: The Missing Link in the Life Cycle," NBER Working Papers 0930, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Banks, James & Blundell, Richard & Tanner, Sarah, 1998. "Is There a Retirement-Savings Puzzle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 769-88, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Hall, Robert E & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1982. "The Sensitivity of Consumption to Transitory Income: Estimates from Panel Data on Households," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 461-81, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Christopher D Carroll, 1997. "Death to the Log-Linearized Consumption euler Equation! (And Very Poor Health to the Second-Order Approximation)," Economics Working Paper Archive 390, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  15. B. Douglas Bernheim & Jonathan Skinner & Steven Weinberg, 2001. "What Accounts for the Variation in Retirement Wealth among U.S. Households?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 832-857, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Sydney Ludvigson & Christina H. Paxson, 2001. "Approximation Bias In Linearized Euler Equations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 242-256, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Michael Hurd & Susann Rohwedder, 2004. "The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: Anticipated and Actual Declines in Spending at Retirement," Working Papers wp069, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center. [Downloadable!]
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  18. George-Marios Angeletos et al., 2001. "The Hyberbolic Consumption Model: Calibration, Simulation, and Empirical Evaluation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 47-68, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Bruce, Neil, 2007. "Variable Retirement and the Effects of Social Insurance on Savings, Wealth, and Welfare," Economics Discussion Papers 2007-5, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
  2. Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Bruce, Neil, 2007. "Uncertain Retirement and the Effects of Social Insurance on Savings, Wealth, and Welfare," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 1(2), pages 1-41. [Downloadable!]
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