IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/harjfk/rwp15-024.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Liquidity in Retirement Savings Systems: An International Comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Beshears, John

    (Harvard University)

  • Choi, James J.

    (Yale University)

  • Hurwitz, Joshua

    (National Bureau of Economic Research)

  • Laibson, David

    (Harvard University)

  • Madrian, Brigitte C.

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

What is the socially optimal level of liquidity in a retirement savings system? Liquid retirement savings are desirable because liquidity enables agents to flexibly respond to pre-retirement events that raise the marginal utility of consumption. On the other hand, pre-retirement liquidity is undesirable when it leads to under-saving arising from, for example, planning mistakes or selfcontrol problems. This paper compares the liquidity that six developed economies have built into their employer-based defined contribution (DC) retirement savings systems. We find that all of them, with the sole exception of the United States, have made their DC systems overwhelmingly illiquid before age 55.

Suggested Citation

  • Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Hurwitz, Joshua & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C., 2015. "Liquidity in Retirement Savings Systems: An International Comparison," Working Paper Series rwp15-024, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp15-024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=1197
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manuel Amador & Iván Werning & George-Marios Angeletos, 2006. "Commitment vs. Flexibility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 365-396, March.
    2. David K. Levine & Drew Fudenberg, 2006. "A Dual-Self Model of Impulse Control," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1449-1476, December.
    3. David I. Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 1998. "Self-Control and Saving for Retirement," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1), pages 91-196.
    4. Rafal Chomik & John Piggott, 2012. "Pensions, Ageing and Retirement in Australia: Long-Term Projections and Policies," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 45(3), pages 350-361, September.
    5. Axel Börsch-Supan & Hendrik Jürges, 2012. "Disability, Pension Reform, and Early Retirement in Germany," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Historical Trends in Mortality and Health, Employment, and Disability Insurance Participatio, pages 277-300, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Faruk Gul & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 2001. "Temptation and Self-Control," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1403-1435, November.
    7. Robert Argento & Victoria L. Bryant & John Sabelhaus, 2015. "Early Withdrawals From Retirement Accounts During The Great Recession," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(1), pages 1-16, January.
    8. Julie Agnew, 2013. "Australia’s Retirement System: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Reforms," Issues in Brief ib2013-5, Center for Retirement Research.
    9. Joelle H. Y. Fong & Olivia S. Mitchell & Benedict S. K. Koh, 2011. "Longevity Risk Management in Singapore's National Pension System," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 78(4), pages 961-982, December.
    10. Keith Ambachtsheer, 2009. "Pension Reform: How Canada can Lead the World," Benefactors Lecture 2009, C.D. Howe Institute.
    11. Christopher D. Carroll, 1997. "Buffer-Stock Saving and the Life Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 1-55.
    12. Christopher D. Carroll, 1992. "The Buffer-Stock Theory of Saving: Some Macroeconomic Evidence," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(2), pages 61-156.
    13. Hazel Bateman & John Piggott, 1999. "Mandating Retirement Provision: The Australian Experience," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 24(1), pages 95-113, January.
    14. Axel Boersch-Supan & Christina B. Wilke, 2004. "The German Public Pension System: How it Was, How it Will Be," NBER Working Papers 10525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Coppola, Michela & Reil-Held, Anette, 1970. "Riester Pensions in Germany: Design, Dynamics, Targetting Success and Crowding-In," MEA discussion paper series 201220, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    16. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    17. Mackenzie,G. A. (Sandy), 2010. "The Decline of the Traditional Pension," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521518475, October.
    18. Kornelia Hagen & Axel Kleinlein, 2012. "Ten Years of the Riester Pension Scheme: No Reason to Celebrate," DIW Economic Bulletin, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 2(2), pages 3-13.
    19. Gretchen Van Riesen, 2009. "The Pension Tangle: Achieving Greater Uniformity of Pension Legislation and Regulation in Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 294, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. 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).
    3. Torben M. Andersen & Joydeep Bhattacharya, 2021. "Why mandate young borrowers to contribute to their retirement accounts?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 115-149, February.
    4. Axelle Arquié, 2023. "Fire Sales and Bank Runs in the Presence of a Saving Allocation by Depositors," Working Papers 2023-09, CEPII research center.
    5. Sumit Agarwal & Jessica Pan & Wenlan Qian, 2020. "Age of Decision: Pension Savings Withdrawal and Consumption and Debt Response," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 43-69, January.
    6. 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).
    7. John Beshears & James J. Choi & Christopher Clayton & Christopher Harris & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2020. "Optimal Illiquidity," NBER Working Papers 27459, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Lu Yang & Yuhuang Zheng & Rui Chen, 2021. "Who has a cushion? The interactive effect of social exclusion and gender on fixed savings," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 1398-1415, December.
    9. Cristian Badarinza & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai, 2016. "International Comparative Household Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 111-144, October.
    10. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Smits, Joeri & Sun, Qigang, 2020. "Contract Structure, Time Preference, and Technology Adoption," IZA Discussion Papers 13590, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. 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.
    12. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Harris, Christopher & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C. & Sakong, Jung, 2015. "Self Control and Commitment: Can Decreasing the Liquidity of a Savings Account Increase Deposits?," Working Paper Series 15-048, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    13. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Harris, Christopher & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C. & Sakong, Jung, 2020. "Which early withdrawal penalty attracts the most deposits to a commitment savings account?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    14. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Smits, Joeri & Sun, Qigang, 2020. "Contract structure, time preference, and technology adoption," GLO Discussion Paper Series 633, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Mahmoudi, Samir Elsadek, 2023. "Late-career unemployment shocks, pension outcomes and unemployment insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    16. Kucuk, Merve & Ulubasoglu, Mehmet & Vu, Ha, 2024. "Stormy Futures? The Impact of Climatic Shocks on Retirement Savings," MPRA Paper 121241, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Sumit Agarwal, 2015. "Age of Decision: Pension Savings Withdrawal and Consumption and Debt Response," 2015 Meeting Papers 709, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Garcia Huitron, Manuel & Ponds, Eduard, 2016. "Participation and Choice in Funded Pension Plans : Guidance for the Netherlands from Worldwide Diversity," Other publications TiSEM 5351a381-f866-4566-82d8-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. 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.
    20. Beshears, John & Kosowsky, Harry, 2020. "Nudging: Progress to date and future directions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 161(S), pages 3-19.
    21. Andersen, Torben M. & Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Liu, Pan, 2023. "Commitment and partial naïveté: Early withdrawal penalties on retirement accounts," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. He, Rong & Li, Heqing & Lian, Zeng & Zheng, Jie, 2020. "The effect of culture on consumption: A behavioral approach," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    2. Vihriälä, Erkki, 2023. "Self-imposed liquidity constraints via voluntary debt repayment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(2).
    3. Bryan, Gharad & Karlan, Dean & Nelson, Scott, 2009. "Commitment Contracts," Working Papers 73, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    4. Laureti, Carolina & Szafarz, Ariane, 2023. "Banking regulation and costless commitment contracts for time-inconsistent agents," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula & Luigi Pistaferri, 2008. "A Direct Test of The Buffer-Stock Model of Saving," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(6), pages 1186-1210, December.
    6. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo, 2008. "The Brain as a Hierarchical Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1312-1346, September.
    7. David Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 2005. "Estimating Discount Functions with Consumption Choices over the Lifecycle," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000643, UCLA Department of Economics.
    8. Driscoll, John C. & Holden, Steinar, 2014. "Behavioral economics and macroeconomic models," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 133-147.
    9. Jianjun Miao, 2008. "Option exercise with temptation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 34(3), pages 473-501, March.
    10. Marco Casari, 2009. "Pre-commitment and flexibility in a time decision experiment," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 117-141, April.
    11. S. Nageeb Ali, 2011. "Learning Self-Control," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 857-893.
    12. Matthias Uhl, 2011. "Do Self-Committers Mind Other-Imposed Commitment? An Experiment on Weak Paternalism," Rationality, Markets and Morals, Frankfurt School Verlag, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, vol. 2(40), June.
    13. Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D., 2014. "Dual-process theories of decision-making: A selective survey," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 45-54.
    14. Groneck, Max & Ludwig, Alexander & Zimper, Alexander, 2013. "Ambiguous Survival Beliefs and Hyperbolic Discounting in a Life-Cycle Model," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79878, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Ted O’Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "Incentives and Self Control," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001262, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Bettina Lamla, 2013. "Family background and the decision to provide for old age: a siblings approach," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 483-504, August.
    17. Basu, Karna, 2014. "Commitment savings in informal banking markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 97-111.
    18. Morse, Adair, 2011. "Payday lenders: Heroes or villains?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 28-44, October.
    19. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Harris, Christopher & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C. & Sakong, Jung, 2020. "Which early withdrawal penalty attracts the most deposits to a commitment savings account?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    20. Eddie Dekel & Barton L. Lipman & Aldo Rustichini, 2009. "Temptation-Driven Preferences," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(3), pages 937-971.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp15-024. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ksharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.