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What Explains Early Withdrawals From Retirement Accounts? Evidence From a Panel of Taxpayers

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  • Amromin, Gene
  • Smith, Paul

Abstract

We use data from a ten-year panel of individual tax returns to investigate the circumstances under which households choose to incur a 10 percent penalty in order to gain early access to retirement accounts. We attempt to link the likelihood of early withdrawals to shocks experienced by households at the time of withdrawal and to the availability of non-retirement assets. Our findings indicate that penalized withdrawals are significantly more likely among households that experience adverse shocks, and that the effect of shocks is amplified for households with low levels of non-retirement financial wealth. In particular, we find that job loss, income shocks, divorce, and home purchases increase the likelihood of early ESP withdrawals by an average of 3 to 10 points each, with significantly stronger increases among the poorest households. We conclude that a significant portion of early withdrawals from retirement accounts reflects consumption-smoothing behavior by liquidity-constrained households who experience financial shocks, rather than squandering of pension assets.

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  • Amromin, Gene & Smith, Paul, 2003. "What Explains Early Withdrawals From Retirement Accounts? Evidence From a Panel of Taxpayers," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 56(3), pages 595-612, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ntj:journl:v:56:y:2003:i:3:p:595-612
    DOI: 10.17310/ntj.2003.3.10
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    1. James M. Poterba & Steven F. Venti, 2001. "Preretirement Cashouts and Foregone Retirement Saving: Implications for 401(k) Asset Accumulation," NBER Chapters, in: Themes in the Economics of Aging, pages 23-58, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. James M. Poterba & Steven F. Venti, 1998. "Lump-Sum Distributions from Retirement Saving Plans: Receipt and Utilization," NBER Chapters, in: Inquiries in the Economics of Aging, pages 85-108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Butler, J S & Moffitt, Robert, 1982. "A Computationally Efficient Quadrature Procedure for the One-Factor Multinomial Probit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 761-764, May.
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    8. Robert Argento & Victoria L. Bryant & John Edward Sabelhaus, 2013. "Early withdrawals from retirement accounts during the Great Recession," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2013-22, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Timothy (Jun) Lu & Olivia S. Mitchell & Stephen P. Utkus & Jean A. Young, 2017. "Borrowing From the Future? 401(K) Plan Loans and Loan Defaults," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 70(1), pages 77-110, March.
    10. Leganza, Jonathan M., 2024. "The effect of required minimum distributions on intergenerational transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    11. Seonghoon Kim & Kanghyock Koh, 2020. "Does Early Access To Pension Wealth Improve Health?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1783-1794, October.
    12. Yanwen Wang & Muxin Zhai & John G. Lynch, 2023. "Cashing Out Retirement Savings at Job Separation," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(4), pages 679-703, July.
    13. Wang-Ly, Nathan & Newell, Ben R., 2022. "Allowing early access to retirement savings: Lessons from Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 716-733.
    14. Jeffrey R. Brown & Zoran Ivković & Paul A. Smith & Scott Weisbenner, 2004. "The geography of stock market participation: the influence of communities and local firms," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-22, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Stuart, Ellen & Bryant, Victoria L., 2024. "The impact of withdrawal penalties on retirement savings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    16. Goda, Gopi Shah & Jones, Damon & Ramnath, Shanthi, 2022. "Temporary and permanent effects of withdrawal penalties on retirement savings accounts✩," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    17. Bateman, Hazel & Dobrescu, Loretti I. & Liu, Junhao & Newell, Ben R. & Thorp, Susan, 2023. "Determinants of early-access to retirement savings: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    18. Elena Derby & Lucas Goodman & Kathleen Mackie & Jacob Mortenson, 2022. "Changes in Retirement Savings During the COVID Pandemic," Papers 2204.12359, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2022.
    19. Jeffrey R. Brown & Zoran Ivković & Paul A. Smith & Scott Weisbenner, 2008. "Neighbors Matter: Causal Community Effects and Stock Market Participation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1509-1531, June.
    20. Teresa Ghilarducci & Siavash Radpour & Anthony Webb, 2018. "New Evidence on the Effect of Economic Shocks on Retirement Plan Withdrawals," SCEPA working paper series. 2018-03, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    21. Anson T. Y. Ho & Jie Zhou, 2016. "Housing and Tax-Deferred Retirement Accounts," Staff Working Papers 16-24, Bank of Canada.
    22. Reyers, Michelle & van Schalkwyk, Cornelis Hendrik & Gouws, Daniël Gerhardus, 2015. "Rational and behavioural predictors of pre-retirement cash-outs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 23-33.

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