EARLY WITHDRAWALS FROM RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS DURING THE GREAT RECESSION

Robert Argento, Victoria L. Bryant and John Sabelhaus

Contemporary Economic Policy, 2015, vol. 33, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: type="main" xml:id="coep12064-abs-0001"> Early withdrawals from retirement accounts are a double-edged sword, because withdrawals reduce retirement resources, but they also allow individuals to smooth consumption when they experience demographic and economic shocks. Using tax data, we show that preretirement withdrawals increased between 2004 and 2010, especially after 2007, but early withdrawal rates are substantial (relative to new contributions) in all those years. Early withdrawal events are strongly correlated with shocks to income and marital status, and lower-income taxpayers are more likely to experience the types of shocks associated with early withdrawals and more likely to have a taxable withdrawal when they experience a given shock. (JEL G23, H24, H31)

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/coep.2015.33.issue-1 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:bla:coecpo:v:33:y:2015:i:1:p:1-16

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... 5-7287&ref=1465-7287

Access Statistics for this article

Contemporary Economic Policy is currently edited by Brad R. Humphreys

More articles in Contemporary Economic Policy from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().