A Cross-Country Comparison of Old-Age Financial Readiness in Asian Countries versus the United States: The Case of Japan and the Republic of Korea

Isaac Ehrlich () and Yong Yin ()

No 29649, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We pursue a cross-country comparison of relative financial readiness of older households in Japan and the Republic of Korea relative to the United States. Our comparative analysis, using macro-level and harmonized longitudinal household financial data, covers the principal financial channels of old-age support: public and private pension plans, family support, and self-management of private financial portfolios. We find that while all three countries have similar public pension systems, older Americans benefit from more developed and better-funded public and private pension systems, as well as individual management of risky financial portfolios. We find that educational and health attainments of household heads and household wealth lead to a greater tendency to hold and manage risky assets. Our decomposition analysis also shows that the gap in stock ownership in Asian countries relative to the United States can be attributed to lower levels of development in financial and pension markets. However, these gaps have been shrinking more recently.

JEL-codes: G11 G12 G32 G51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-cwa and nep-sea
Note: AG AP DEV ED EH PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Asian Development Review Volume 39, Number 1, March 2022
Published as Isaac Ehrlich & Yong Yin, 2022. "A Cross-Country Comparison of Old-Age Financial Readiness in Asian Countries versus the United States: The Case of Japan and the Republic of Korea," Asian Development Review (ADR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 39(01), pages 5-49, March.
Published as ISAAC EHRLICH & YONG YIN, 2022. "A Cross-Country Comparison of Old-Age Financial Readiness in Asian Countries versus the United States: The Case of Japan and the Republic of Korea," Asian Development Review, vol 39(01), pages 5-49.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29649.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:nbr:nberwo:29649

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29649

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().