@article {5867,
	title = {What Determines End-of-Life Assets? A Retrospective View},
	year = {2015},
	abstract = {We consider assets when individuals were last observed prior to death in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and trace assets backwards to the age when these individuals were first observed. For most individuals, assets in the last year observed (LYO) were very similar to assets in the first year observed (FYO). In particular, most of those who were last observed with very low asset levels also had low assets when first observed. We also estimate the relationship between an individual{\textquoteright}s asset change between the first and last date of observation, that individual{\textquoteright}s education and health status when first observed, and that individual{\textquoteright}s within-sample changes in health and family composition. We obtain estimates for HRS respondents who were 51 to 61 in 1992 and for AHEAD respondents who were age 70 and over in 1993.},
	keywords = {Consumption and Savings, Employment and Labor Force, Net Worth and Assets, Women and Minorities},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise}
}
@article {5964,
	title = {Health, Education, and the Post-Retirement Evolution of Household Assets},
	year = {2013},
	institution = {Cambridge, MA, National Bureau of Economic Research},
	abstract = {This paper explores the relationship between education and the evolution of wealth after retirement. Asset growth following retirement depends in part on health capital and financial capital accumulated prior to retirement, which in turn are strongly related to educational attainment. These  initial conditions  for retirement can have a lingering effect on subsequent asset evolution. Our aim is to disentangle the effects of education on post-retirement asset evolution that operate through health and financial capital accumulated prior to retirement from the effects of education that impinge directly on asset evolution after retirement. We consider the indirect effect of education through financial resources in particular Social Security benefits and defined benefit pension benefits and through health capital that was accumulated before retirement. We also consider the direct effect of education on asset growth following retirement, emphasizing the correlation between education and the returns households earn on their post-retirement investments. Households with different levels of education invest, on average, in different assets, and they may consequently earn different rates of return. Finally, we consider the additional effects of education that are not captured through these pathways. Our empirical findings suggest a substantial association between education and the evolution of assets. For example, for two person households the growth of assets between 1998 and 2008 is on average much greater for college graduates than for those with less than a high school degree. This difference ranges from about  82,000 in the lowest asset quintile to over  600,000 in the highest.},
	keywords = {Demographics, Health Conditions and Status, Net Worth and Assets, Retirement Planning and Satisfaction},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise}
}
@article {5925,
	title = {Were They Prepared for Retirement? Financial Status at Advanced Ages in the HRS and AHEAD Cohorts},
	year = {2012},
	note = {National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, NBER Working Papers: 17824, 2012 0898-2937 Working Paper},
	institution = {National Bureau of Economic Research},
	abstract = {Many analysts have considered whether households approaching retirement age have accumulated enough assets to be well prepared for retirement. In this paper, we shift from studying household finances at the start of the retirement period, an ex ante measure of retirement preparation, to studying the asset holdings of households in their last years of life. The analysis is based on Health and Retirement Study with special attention to Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) cohort that was first surveyed in 1993. We consider the level of assets that households hold in the last survey wave preceding their death. We study how assets at the end of life depend on three family status pathways prior to death--(1) original one-person households in 1993, (2) persons in two-person household in 1993 with a deceased spouse in the last year observed, and (3) persons in two-person households in 1993 with the spouse alive when last observed. We find that a substantial fraction of persons die with virtually no financial assets--46.1 percent with less than  10,000--and many of these households also have no housing wealth and rely almost entirely on Social Security benefits for support. In addition this group is disproportionately in poor health. Based on a replacement rate comparison, many of these households may be deemed to have been well-prepared for retirement, in the sense that their income in their final years was not substantially lower than their income in their late 50s or early 60s. Yet with such low asset levels, they would have little capacity to pay for unanticipated needs such as health expenses or other financial shocks or to pay for entertainment, travel, or other activities. This raises a question of whether the replacement ratio is a sufficient statistic for the  adequacy  of retirement preparation.},
	keywords = {Consumption and Savings, Employment and Labor Force, Event History/Life Cycle, Net Worth and Assets, Women and Minorities},
	url = {URL:http://www.nber.org/papers/w17824.pdf  URL},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise}
}
@article {5825,
	title = {The Asset Cost of Poor Health},
	number = {16389},
	year = {2010},
	institution = {National Bureau of Economic Research},
	address = {Cambridge, MA},
	abstract = {This paper examines the correlation between poor health and asset accumulation for households in the first nine waves of the Health and Retirement Survey. Rather than enumerating the specific costs of poor health, such as out of pocket medical expenses or lost earnings, we estimate how the evolution of household assets is related to poor health. We construct a simple measure of health status based on the first principal component of HRS survey responses on self-reported health status, diagnoses, ADLs, IADL, and other indicators of underlying health. Our estimates suggest large and substantively important correlations between poor health and asset accumulation. We compare persons in each 1992 asset quintile who were in the top third of the 1992 distribution of latent health with those in the same 1992 asset quintile who were in the bottom third of the latent health distribution. By 2008, those in the top third of the health distribution had accumulated, on average, more than 50 percent more assets than those in the bottom third of the health distribution. This asset cost of poor health appears to be larger for persons with substantial 1992 asset balances than for those with lower balances.},
	keywords = {Health Conditions and Status, Net Worth and Assets},
	doi = {10.3386/w16389},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise}
}
@article {5784,
	title = {Family Status Transitions, Latent Health, and the Post-Retirement Evolution of Assets},
	number = {15789},
	year = {2010},
	institution = {National Bureau of Economic Research},
	address = {Cambridge, MA},
	abstract = {We consider the evolution of assets after retirement. We ask whether total assets--including housing equity, personal retirement accounts, and other financial assets--tend to be husbanded for a rainy day and drawn down primarily at the time of precipitating shocks, or whether they are drawn down throughout the retirement period. We focus on the relationships between family status transitions,  latent  health status, and the evolution of assets. Our analysis is based primarily on longitudinal data from the HRS and AHEAD cohorts of the Health and Retirement Study. We find that the evolution of assets is strongly related to family status transitions. For both single individuals and married couples who do not experience a death or divorce, total assets increase well into old age. In contrast, individuals in married couples that experience a family status transition, either a death or a divorce, exhibit much slower asset growth and often experience a large decline in asset values at the time of the transition. In addition, the level and evolution of assets is very strongly related to health, measured by a latent health index. For example, for continuing two-person HRS households between the ages of 56 and 61 in 1992 the ratio of assets of households in the top health quintile to the assets of those in the bottom quintile was 1.7 in 1992. It had increased to 2.2 by the end of 2006.},
	keywords = {Adult children, Housing, Net Worth and Assets, Pensions},
	doi = {10.3386/w15789},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise}
}
@inbook {5185,
	title = {Utility Evaluation of Risk in Retirement Saving Accounts},
	booktitle = {Analyses in the Economics of Aging},
	year = {2005},
	note = {RDA ProCite field 6 : In ProCite field 8 : ed},
	publisher = {University of Chicago Press},
	organization = {University of Chicago Press},
	address = {Chicago},
	abstract = {The shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans in the United States has drawn new attention to the effect of participants{\textquoteright} asset  allocation decisions on their financial resources for retirement. This paper develops a stochastic simulation algorithm to evaluate the effect of  holding a broadly diversified portfolio of common stocks, or a portfolio of index bonds, on the distribution of 401(k) account balances at  retirement. We compare the alternative distributions of retirement wealth both by showing the empirical distribution of potential wealth values, and  by computing the expected utility of these outcomes under standard assumptions about the structure of household preferences. Our analysis  highlights the critical role of other sources of wealth, such as Social Security, defined benefit pension annuities, and saving outside retirement  plans in determining the expected utility cost of holding equities in the retirement account. Our findings also demonstrate the importance of the  equity premium in affecting investors{\textquoteright} utility from different retirement asset allocations. Viewed from the beginning of a working career, and  given the historical pattern of returns on stocks and bonds, a household that does not have extremely high risk aversion would achieve a higher expected utility by holding a portfolio of stocks rather than bonds.},
	keywords = {Net Worth and Assets, Retirement Planning and Satisfaction},
	doi = {10.3386/w9892},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Joshua Rauh and Steven F Venti and David A Wise},
	editor = {David A Wise}
}
@inbook {5194,
	title = {The Transition to Personal Retirement Accounts and Increasing Retirement Wealth},
	booktitle = {Perspectives on the Economics of Aging},
	year = {2004},
	note = {ProCite field 6 : In ProCite field 8 : ed.},
	publisher = {University of Chicago Press},
	organization = {University of Chicago Press},
	address = {Chicago, IL},
	abstract = {Retirement saving has changed dramatically over the last two decades. There has been a shift from employer-managed defined benefit pensions to defined contribution retirement saving plans that are largely controlled by employees. In 1980, 92 percent of private retirement saving contributions were to employer-based plans and 64 percent of these contributions were to defined benefit plans. Today, about 85 percent of private contributions are to plans in which individuals decide how much to contribute to the plan, how to invest plan assets and how and when to withdraw money from the plan. In this paper we use both macro and micro data to describe the change in retirement assets and in retirement saving. We give particular attention to the possible substitution of pension assets in one plan for assets in another plan such as the substitution of 401(k) assets for defined benefit plan assets. Aggregate data show that between 1975 and 1999 assets to support retirement increased about five-fold relative to wage and salary income. This increase suggests large increases in the wealth of future retirees. The enormous increase in defined contribution plan assets dwarfed any potential displacement of defined benefit plan assets. In addition, in recent years the annual {\textquoteright}retirement plan contribution rate,{\textquoteright} defined as retirement plan contributions as a percentage of NIPA personal income, has been over 5 percent. This is much higher than the NIPA total personal saving rate, which has been close to zero. Retirement saving as a share of personal income today would likely be at least one percentage point greater had it not been for legislation in the 1980s that limited employer contributions to defined benefit pension plans, and the reduction in defined benefit plan contributions associated with the rising stock market of the 1990s. It is also likely that the {\textquoteright}retirement plan contribution rate{\textquoteright} would be much higher today if it were not for the 1986 retrenchment of the IRA program. Rising retirement plan contributions, as well as favorable rates of return on retirement plan assets in the 1990s, explain the large increase in these assets relative to income. Employee retirement saving under a defined contribution plan is easily measured and quite},
	keywords = {Net Worth and Assets, Pensions},
	doi = {10.3386/w8610},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise},
	editor = {David A Wise}
}
@inbook {5177,
	title = {Preretirement Cashouts and Foregone Retirement Saving: Implications for 401(k) Asset Accumulation},
	booktitle = {Themes in the Economics of Aging},
	year = {2001},
	note = {RDA 1999-002 Wise ProCite field 6 : In ProCite field 8 : ed},
	pages = {23-58},
	publisher = {University of Chicago Press},
	organization = {University of Chicago Press},
	address = {Chicago, IL},
	keywords = {Consumption and Savings, Net Worth and Assets, Pensions},
	url = {https://www.nber.org/chapters/c10320},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise},
	editor = {David A Wise}
}
@article {6717,
	title = {Saver Behavior and 401(k) Retirement Wealth},
	journal = {American Economic Review},
	volume = {90},
	year = {2000},
	note = {RDA 1999-002},
	pages = {297-302},
	publisher = {90},
	abstract = { Contributions to 401(k) plans are now the most
 important form of retirement saving. Since 401(k)
 plans were introduced in the early 1980{\textquoteright}s, they
 have expanded rapidly and continuously. By
 1998, roughly half of all households were eligible
 to participate in 401(k) plans, and more than 36
 million workers made contributions to these
 employer-provided saving plans. In 1995, the last
 year for which the U.S. Department of Labor
 has released definitive data, 401(k) contribu-
 tions amounted to $87.4 billion, or 55 percent of
 all contributions to employer-sponsored pension
 plans. The level of contributions, and their share
 of all pension contributions, is probably signifi-
 cantly higher today.
 The spread of 401(k) plans is the most
 important indicator of the move to personal
 retirement saving. In 1980, almost 92 percent
 of pension-plan contributions were to tradi-
 tional employer-provided plans, and about
 64 percent of these contributions were to
 conventional defined-benefit plans. Today,
 almost 60 percent of contributions are to
 personal retirement accounts, including 401(k),
 IRA, and Keogh plans. Including employer-
 provided, non-40 1 (k) defined-contribution
 plans, over 76 percent of contributions are to
 plans that are controlled in large measure by
 individuals. These individuals make partici-
 pation, contribution, asset-allocation, and
 withdrawal decisions.
 In this paper, we describe the likely impor-
 tance of 401(k) assets for future older Ameri-
 cans and the effect of investment decisions on
 asset accumulation. We also examine the extent
 to which retirement assets may be affected by
 several decisions: preretirement withdrawals,
 management fees and expenses, contribution
 rates, and early retirement. Our analysis focuses
 on 401(k) saving, but applies more broadly to
 other forms of individual retirement saving.},
	keywords = {Consumption and Savings, Net Worth and Assets, Pensions, Retirement Planning and Satisfaction, Social Security},
	url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/117239?seq=1},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise}
}
@article {6621,
	title = {401(k) Plans and future patterns of retirement saving},
	journal = {American Economic Review},
	volume = {88},
	year = {1998},
	note = {RDA 1999-002},
	pages = {179-184},
	publisher = {88},
	abstract = {This paper summarizes current participation and contribution patterns in 401(k) plans and projects 401(k) balances at retirement age for workers currently between the ages of 30 and 40. The various factors that will influence future 401(k) balances are discussed. The projections based on HRS data suggest that 401(k) plans are likely to play a significant role in providing for the retirement income of future retirees.},
	keywords = {Employment and Labor Force, Net Worth and Assets, Pensions, Retirement Planning and Satisfaction},
	url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/116915?seq=1},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise}
}
@article {5316,
	title = {Lump-Sum Distributions from Retirement Saving Plans: Receipt and Utility},
	year = {1995},
	institution = {NBER},
	abstract = {One of the central issues in evaluating the ongoing shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) pension plans is the degree to which assets in DC plans will be withdrawn before plan participants reach retirement age. The annual flow of withdrawals from such plans, which are known as lump sum distributions and which are frequently but not always associated with employment changes, has exceeded  100 billion in recent years. This flow is substantially greater than the flow of new contributions to IRAs and other targeted retirement saving programs. This paper draws on data from the 1993 Current Population Survey and the Health and Retirement Survey to summarize the incidence and disposition of lump sum distributions. We find that while less than half of all lump sum distributions are rolled over into IRAs or other retirement saving plans, large distributions are substantially more likely to be saved than smaller ones are. Consequently, more than half of the dollars paid out as lump sum distributions are reinvested. We also explore the correlation between various individual characteristics and the probability of rolling over a lump sum distribution. This is a first step toward developing a model that can be used to evaluate the long- term effects of lump sum distributions, or policies that might affect them, on the financial status of elderly households.},
	keywords = {Income, Net Worth and Assets},
	url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5193273_Lump-Sum_Distributions_from_Retirement_Saving_Plans_Receipt_and_Utilization},
	author = {James M. Poterba and Steven F Venti and David A Wise}
}
