IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedkrw/rwp03-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Portfolio choice in tax-deferred and Roth-type savings accounts

Author

Listed:
  • Richard L. Johnson

Abstract

This paper uses numerical methods to compare optimal portfolios in tax-deferred and Roth-type savings accounts. Income and payroll taxes affect optimal portfolios in tax-deferred and Roth-type plans differently. For workers with assets in only one type of plan, the optimal equity share in a tax-deferred account could be higher or lower than in a Roth, depending on initial wealth. The differences in optimal portfolios between plans are large at short investment horizons but smaller at longer horizons. This paper also studies the 'asset location' decision of workers with assets in plans of both types.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard L. Johnson, 2003. "Portfolio choice in tax-deferred and Roth-type savings accounts," Research Working Paper RWP 03-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedkrw:rwp03-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.kansascityfed.org/documents/5389/pdf-RWP03-08.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell & João F. Cocco & Francisco J. Gomes & Pascal J. Maenhout, 2001. "Investing Retirement Wealth: A Life-Cycle Model," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 439-482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Bodie, Zvi & Merton, Robert C. & Samuelson, William F., 1992. "Labor supply flexibility and portfolio choice in a life cycle model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 427-449.
    3. Shoven, John B. & Sialm, Clemens, 2004. "Asset location in tax-deferred and conventional savings accounts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 23-38, January.
    4. Burman, Leonard E. & Gale, William G. & Weiner, David, 2001. "The Taxation of Retirement Saving: Choosing Between Front-Loaded and Back-Loaded Options," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 54(n. 3), pages 689-702, September.
    5. Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 2003. "Who Gets Paid to Save?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 17, pages 111-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Burman, Leonard E. & Gale, William G. & Weiner, David, 2001. "The Taxation of Retirement Saving: Choosing Between Front-Loaded and Back-Loaded Options," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 54(3), pages 689-702, September.
    7. Paul A. Samuelson, 2011. "Lifetime Portfolio Selection by Dynamic Stochastic Programming," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & Edward O Thorp & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE KELLY CAPITAL GROWTH INVESTMENT CRITERION THEORY and PRACTICE, chapter 31, pages 465-472, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B., 2002. "Social security," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 32, pages 2245-2324, Elsevier.
    9. James M. Poterba & John B. Shoven & Clemens Sialm, 2000. "Asset Location for Retirement Savers," NBER Working Papers 7991, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Smetters, Kent, 2002. "Controlling the cost of minimum benefit guarantees in public pension conversions," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 9-33, March.
    11. Merton, Robert C, 1969. "Lifetime Portfolio Selection under Uncertainty: The Continuous-Time Case," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 51(3), pages 247-257, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. James M. Poterba & Joshua Rauh & Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 2009. "Lifecycle Asset Allocation Strategies and the Distribution of 401(k) Retirement Wealth," NBER Chapters, in: Developments in the Economics of Aging, pages 15-50, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Zhou, Jie, 2009. "The asset location puzzle: Taxes matter," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 955-969, April.
    3. Francisco Gomes & Alexander Michaelides, 2003. "Portfolio Choice With Internal Habit Formation: A Life-Cycle Model With Uninsurable Labor Income Risk," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(4), pages 729-766, October.
    4. Mehlkopf, R.J., 2011. "Risk sharing with the unborn," Other publications TiSEM fe8a8df6-455f-4624-af10-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    6. Zvi Bodie & Jérôme Detemple & Marcel Rindisbacher, 2009. "Life-Cycle Finance and the Design of Pension Plans," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 249-286, November.
    7. James M. Poterba & Joshua Rauh & Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 2009. "Reducing Social Security PRA Risk at the Individual Level: Life-Cycle Funds and No-Loss Strategies," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment, pages 255-292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Jialun Li & Kent Smetters, 2011. "Optimal Portfolio Choice with Wage-Indexed Social Security," NBER Working Papers 17025, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Alessandro Bucciol, 2007. "Life-Cycle Models, Economic Puzzles and Temptation Preferences," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 66(1), pages 115-144, March.
    10. Levy, Haim & Levy, Moshe, 2021. "The cost of diversification over time, and a simple way to improve target-date funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    11. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2005. "Portfolio Choice over the Life-Cycle in the Presence of 'Trickle Down' Labor Income," NBER Working Papers 11247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Kaschützke, B. & Maurer, R., 2016. "Investing and Portfolio Allocation for Retirement," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 567-608, Elsevier.
    13. Joshua Woodruff & William B. Haskell & Alejandro Toriello, 2016. "Optimized Financial Systems Helps Customers Meet Their Personal Finance Goals with Optimization," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 345-359, August.
    14. Jakša Cvitani'{c} & Levon Goukasian & Fernando Zapatero, 2007. "Optimal Risk Taking with Flexible Income," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(10), pages 1594-1603, October.
    15. Gollier, Christian, 2008. "Intergenerational risk-sharing and risk-taking of a pension fund," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1463-1485, June.
    16. Letendre, Marc-Andre & Smith, Gregor W., 2001. "Precautionary saving and portfolio allocation: DP by GMM," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 197-215, August.
    17. Jeff Dominitz & Angela Hung, 2006. "Retirement Savings Portfolio Management," Working Papers wp138, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    18. Stephen Foerster & Juhani T. Linnainmaa & Brian T. Melzer & Alessandro Previtero, 2017. "Retail Financial Advice: Does One Size Fit All?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1441-1482, August.
    19. Fabio C. Bagliano & Carolina Fugazza & Giovanna Nicodano, 2014. "Optimal Life-Cycle Portfolios for Heterogeneous Workers," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2283-2323.
    20. Nicolas Aubert & Thomas Rapp, 2008. "Les salariés actionnaires:pourquoi investissent-ils dans leur entreprise?," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 11(4), pages 87-110, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Individual retirement accounts; Retirement; 401(k) plans;
    All these keywords.

    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:fip:fedkrw:rwp03-08. 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: Zach Kastens (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbkcus.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.