Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/106976 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
SAFE Policy Letter No. 26
Publisher: 
Goethe University Frankfurt, SAFE - Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe, Frankfurt a. M.
Abstract: 
Social Security rules that determine retirement, spousal, and survivor benefits, along with benefit adjustments according to the age at which these are claimed, open up a complex set of financial options for household decisions. These rules influence optimal household asset allocation, insurance, and work decisions, subject to life cycle demographic shocks, such as marriage, divorce, and children. Our model-based research generates a wealth profile and a low and stable equity fraction consistent with empirical evidence. We confirm predictions that wives will claim retirement benefits earlier than husbands, while life insurance is mainly purchased by younger men. Our policy simulations imply that eliminating survivor benefits would sharply reduce claiming differences by sex while dramatically increasing men's life insurance purchases.
Subjects: 
life-cycle models
household savings
investment decisions
life-cycle models
household savings
investment decisions
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Research Report

Files in This Item:
File
Size
201.13 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.