The Composition and Draw-down of Wealth in Retirement

James Poterba, Steven Venti and David Wise ()

No 17536, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper presents evidence on the resources available to households as they enter retirement. It draws heavily on data collected by the Health and Retirement Study and calculates the "potential additional annuity income" that households could purchase, given their holdings of non-annuitized financial assets at the start of retirement. Even if households used all of their financial assets inside and outside personal retirement accounts to purchase a life annuity, only 47 percent of households between the ages of 65 and 69 in 2008 could increase their life-contingent income by more than $5,000 per year. At the upper end of the wealth distribution, however, a substantial number of households could make large annuity purchases. The paper also considers the role of housing equity in the portfolios of retirement-age households, and explores the extent to which households draw down housing equity and financial assets as they age. Many households appear to treat housing equity and non-annuitized financial assets as "precautionary savings," tending to draw them down only when they experience a shock such as the death of a spouse or a period of substantial medical outlays. Because home equity is often conserved until very late in life, for many households it may provide some insurance against the risk of living longer than expected.

JEL-codes: D14 D91 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
Note: AG EFG PE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published as James Poterba & Steven Venti & David Wise, 2011. "The Composition and Drawdown of Wealth in Retirement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 95-118, Fall.

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Journal Article: The Composition and Drawdown of Wealth in Retirement (2011)
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