IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedcwp/9413.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The annuitization of Americans' resources: a cohort analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Alan J. Auerbach
  • Jagadeesh Gokhale
  • Laurence J. Kotlikoff
  • John Edward Sabelhaus
  • David N. Weil

Abstract

An analysis of the changes since 1960 in the share of Americans' resources that are annuitized, which has declined slightly for younger Americans but has risen dramatically for the elderly, with important implications for the national saving rate and income inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan J. Auerbach & Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & John Edward Sabelhaus & David N. Weil, 1994. "The annuitization of Americans' resources: a cohort analysis," Working Papers (Old Series) 9413, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcwp:9413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?item_id=494613&filepath=/docs/historical/frbclev/wp/frbclv_wp1994-13.pdf#scribd-open
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davies, James B, 1981. "Uncertain Lifetime, Consumption, and Dissaving in Retirement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(3), pages 561-577, June.
    2. Alan J. Auerbach & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & David N. Weil, 1992. "The Increasing Annuitization of the Elderly- Estimates and Implications for Intergenerational Tranfers, Inequality, and National Saving," NBER Working Papers 4182, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Abel, Andrew B, 1985. "Precautionary Saving and Accidental Bequests," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 777-791, September.
    4. Alan J. Auerbach & Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1991. "Generational Accounts: A Meaningful Alternative to Deficit Accounting," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 5, pages 55-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & John Sabelhaus, 1996. "Understanding the Postwar Decline in U.S. Saving: A Cohort Analysis," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 315-407.
    6. Menahem E. Yaari, 1965. "Uncertain Lifetime, Life Insurance, and the Theory of the Consumer," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 32(2), pages 137-150.
    7. Louise Sheiner & David N. Weil, 1992. "The Housing Wealth of the Aged," NBER Working Papers 4115, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Feldstein, Martin S, 1974. "Social Security, Induced Retirement, and Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(5), pages 905-926, Sept./Oct.
    9. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & John B. Shoven & Avia Spivak, 1984. "The Impact of Annuity Insurance on Savings and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 1403, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1998. "Simulating the Privatization of Social Security in General Equilibrium," NBER Chapters, in: Privatizing Social Security, pages 265-311, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1996. "Privatization of Social Security: How It Works and Why It Matters," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 10, pages 1-32, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Kam Ki Tang & Jie Zhang, 2007. "Morbidity, Mortality, Health Expenditures and Annuitization," CESifo Working Paper Series 2086, CESifo.
    4. Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 2002. "The Impact of Social Security and Other Factors on the Distribution of Wealth," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 85-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Laps, Jochen, 2016. "Fully Funded Social Security Pensions, Lifetime Risk and Income," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145587, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Kotlikoff, Laurence J., 2002. "Generational policy," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 27, pages 1873-1932, Elsevier.
    7. Gokhale, Jagadeesh & Kotlikoff, Laurence J. & Sefton, James & Weale, Martin, 2001. "Simulating the transmission of wealth inequality via bequests," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 93-128, January.
    8. Kotlikoff, Laurence, 1996. "A társadalombiztosítás privatizálása hogyan működik és miért fontos? [Privatization of social security how it works and why it matters?]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(12), pages 1045-1071.
    9. Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & John Edward Sabelhaus, 1995. "Understanding the postwar decline in United States saving: a cohort analysis," Working Papers (Old Series) 9518, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    10. Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & John Sabelhaus, 1996. "Understanding the Postwar Decline in U.S. Saving: A Cohort Analysis," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 315-407.
    11. David E. Altig & Jagadeesh Gokhale, 1997. "Social Security privatization: a simple proposal," Working Papers (Old Series) 9703, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    12. David Altig, 2001. "Simulating Fundamental Tax Reform in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 574-595, June.

    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. Willman, Alpo, 2007. "Sequential optimization, front-loaded information, and U.S. consumption," Working Paper Series 765, European Central Bank.
    2. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & John B. Shoven & Avia Spivak, 1987. "Annuity Markets, Savings, and the Capital Stock," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in Pension Economics, pages 211-236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Hubbard, R. Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1994. "The importance of precautionary motives in explaining individual and aggregate saving," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 59-125, June.
    4. Arthur Hau, 2001. "Precautionary Saving and Mortality-Contingent Social Insurance Programs," Public Finance Review, , vol. 29(1), pages 61-82, January.
    5. Alessie, Rob & Lusardi, Annamaria & Kapteyn, Arie, 1999. "Saving after retirement: evidence from three different surveys," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 277-310, June.
    6. Mengyuan Zhou, 2022. "Does the Source of Inheritance Matter in Bequest Attitudes? Evidence from Japan," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 867-887, December.
    7. Mengyuan Zhou, 2019. "The Effect of the Source of Inheritance on Bequest Attitudes: Evidence from Japan," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2019-018, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    8. B. Douglas Bernheim, 1987. "Dissaving after Retirement: Testing the Pure Life Cycle Hypothesis," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in Pension Economics, pages 237-280, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Kotlikoff, Laurence J., 2002. "Generational policy," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 27, pages 1873-1932, Elsevier.
    10. Charles Yuji Horioka & Luigi Ventura, 2024. "Do the Retired Elderly in Europe Decumulate Their Wealth? The Importance of Bequest Motives, Precautionary Saving, Public Pensions, and Homeownership," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 70(1), pages 187-212, March.
    11. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1987. "Uncertain Lifetimes, Pensions, and Individual Saving," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in Pension Economics, pages 175-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. William G. Gale & John Karl Scholz, 1994. "Intergenerational Transfers and the Accumulation of Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 145-160, Fall.
    13. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1984. "'Precautionary' Saving Revisited: Social Security, Individual Welfare, and the Capital Stock," NBER Working Papers 1430, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Richard Disney, 1996. "Ageing and saving," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 83-101, May.
    15. Bernheim, B Douglas, 1991. "How Strong Are Bequest Motives? Evidence Based on Estimates of the Demand for Life Insurance and Annuities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 899-927, October.
    16. Miguel Sánchez-Romero & Concepció Patxot & Elisenda Rentería & Guadalupe Souto, 2013. "On the effects of public and private transfers on capital accumulation: some lessons from the NTA aggregates," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1409-1430, October.
    17. John P. Rust, 1989. "A Dynamic Programming Model of Retirement Behavior," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Aging, pages 359-404, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 2002. "The Impact of Social Security and Other Factors on the Distribution of Wealth," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 85-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Hugo Benitez-Silva, 2000. "A Dynamic Model Of Labor Supply, Consumption/Saving, And Annuity Decisions Under Uncertainty," Computing in Economics and Finance 2000 128, Society for Computational Economics.
    20. Hugo Benítez-Silva, 2003. "The Annuity Puzzle Revisited," Working Papers wp055, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Saving and investment;

    JEL classification:

    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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:fip:fedcwp:9413. 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: 4D Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.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.