The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: Anticipated and Actual Declines in Spending at Retirement

Michael Hurd () and Susann Rohwedder

Working Papers from University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center

Abstract: The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires “consumption smoothing.” However, British and U.S. households apparently reduce consumption at retirement and the reduction cannot be explained by the life-cycle model. An interpretation is that retirees are surprised by the inadequacy of resources. This interpretation challenges the life-cycle model where consumers are forward looking. However, data on anticipated consumption changes at retirement and on realized consumption changes following retirement show that the reductions are fully anticipated. Apparently the decline is due to the cessation of workrelated expenses and the substitution of home production for market-purchased goods and services.

Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2004-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

Downloads: (external link)
http://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp069.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden (http://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp069.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp069.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle Anticipated and Actual Declines in Spending at Retirement (2005)
Working Paper: The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: Anticipated and Actual Declines in Spending at Retirement (2003)
Working Paper: The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle Anticipated and Actual Declines in Spending at Retirement (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mrr:papers:wp069

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center P.O. Box 1248, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MRRC Administrator ().