Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/272810 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. WP 2022-50
Publisher: 
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Abstract: 
Retirement savings abandonment is a rising concern connected to defined contribution systems and default enrollment. We use tax data on Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to establish that for a recent cohort, 0.4% of retirement-age individuals abandoned an aggregate of $66 million, proxied by a failure to claim over ten years after a legal requirement to do so. Analysis of state unclaimed property databases suggests that workplace defined contribution plans are abandoned at a higher rate than IRAs. Finally, regression discontinuity estimates show that certain accounts created by default enrollment are at higher risk of abandonment by passive savers.
Subjects: 
retirement savings
defaults
escheatment
JEL: 
D83
H24
H31
J32
J14
J63
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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