IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0568.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Private Pensions and Inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Feldstein

Abstract

Much of the recent discussion about the relation between pensions and inflation has emphasized the adverse impact that the un-expected rise in inflation has had on pension recipients and on the performance of pension funds. In contrast, the present paper focuses on the way that pensions are likely to evolve in response to the expectation of continued inflation in the future and to the uncertainty about the rate of inflation. The unfortunate effects that occurred when inflation caught pensioners and pension fund managers by surprise should not be confused with an inability to adjust to future conditions, even uncertain future conditions. As I shall explain, the persistence of a high rate of inflation is likely to increase the share of total saving that goes into private pensions. Since the tax treatment of pension contributions allows individuals to save in this way for retirement on the same terms that they would under a consumption tax,' the existence of the private pension system may be one of a few things that prevents the national saving rate from going even lower in the current inflationary environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Feldstein, 1980. "Private Pensions and Inflation," NBER Working Papers 0568, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0568
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0568.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zvi Bodie, 1980. "Purchasing-Power Annuities: Financial Innovation for Stable Real Retirement Income in an Inflationary Environment," NBER Working Papers 0442, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Fischer Black, 1980. "The Tax Advantages of Pension Fund Investments in Bonds," NBER Working Papers 0533, 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. Martin Feldstein, 1982. "Private Pensions as Corporate Debt," NBER Chapters, in: The Changing Roles of Debt and Equity in Financing U.S. Capital Formation, pages 75-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Martin Feldstein, 1982. "Private Pensions as Corporate Debt," NBER Chapters, in: The Changing Roles of Debt and Equity in Financing U.S. Capital Formation, pages 75-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Pesando, James E, 1984. "Employee Evaluation of Pension Claims and the Impact of Indexing Initiatives," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(1), pages 1-17, January.
    3. Martin Feldstein, 1983. "Should Private Pensions Be Indexed?," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 211-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Martin Feldstein & Randall Morck, 1983. "Pension Funding Decisions, Interest Rate Assumptions, and Share Prices," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 177-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Zvi Bodie & John B. Shoven, 1983. "Introduction to "Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System"," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 1-16, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1980. "Effects of Shifting Saving Patterns on Interest Rates and Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 0587, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:0568. 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/nberrus.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.