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Accounting for the heterogeneity in retirement wealth

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Fang Yang

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Abstract

This paper studies a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium life-cycle model where parents and their children are linked by bequests, both voluntary and accidental, and by the transmission of earnings ability. This model is able to match very well the empirical observation that households with similar lifetime incomes hold very different amounts of wealth at retirement. Income heterogeneity and borrowing constraints are essential in generating the variation in retirement wealth among low lifetime income households, while the existence of intergenerational links is crucial in explaining the heterogeneity in retirement wealth among high lifetime income households.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in its series Working Papers with number 638.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmwp:638

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Keywords: Wealth Retirement income

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Marco Cagetti & Mariacristina De Nardi, 2006. "Wealth Inequality: Data and Models," NBER Working Papers 12550, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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