Understanding the role of liquid wealth, family financial transfers, and pensions in household insurance

Context家庭可能需要储蓄，主要有两个原因：为自己提供不良事件保险，以及为退休后提供资源。虽然标准的经济模型往往假设个人能够就其储蓄和保险决策做出理性和知情的选择，但有相当多的证据表明情况并非如此。这在多大程度上影响了人们的福祉，是一个具有重要政策含义的关键学术问题。在英国，个人在储蓄的时间和方式上有很大的自由。最近取消了将积累的养老金财富按年计算的要求，这给了人们在如何通过退休提取资金方面的灵活性。人们对人们做出这些艰难选择的能力有相当大的担忧，特别是许多人的退休储蓄不足，以及一些人可能会在退休后过快地用完养老金。迫切需要在这些领域提供更有力的证据，以了解退休储蓄政策的当前发展情况，以及围绕退休后获得养老金的监管环境和消费者咨询市场。目的和目标我们提出了一个研究方案，该方案将使用大规模的家庭调查数据为这些辩论提供关键的新证据。第一部分将考察低流动性财富的普遍性、持久性和驱动因素，剔除收入水平、预先承诺的费用、家庭构成和不同保险来源的相对作用。我们将研究在新冠肺炎大流行期间，这些财富在保护家庭免受经济困难方面所发挥的作用。这将揭示鼓励更多的退休储蓄与专注于鼓励个人建立“雨天基金”的政策之间的权衡。第二部分将评估在一生中几代人之间进行的金融转移的驱动因素和后果。我们将量化新冠肺炎大流行期间家庭内部收入风险的代际保险程度。然后，我们将探讨转移的决定因素，以及它们对赠与者财富积累和接受者在较长时期内财富积累的影响。这使我们能够估计转移对年轻一代财富积累和按家庭背景划分的财富不平等的贡献。第三部分将提供第一个全面的量化评估，一旦考虑到人们的其他财富和更广泛的家庭资源，新的养老金灵活性可能对退休资源状况产生的影响。我们将研究个人计划如何获取财富的意图，以及由此产生的收入状况与最近几代退休人员通过退休而进行的支出模式的比较。这项研究将由公共、私营和非营利部门的项目合作伙伴在智力和财政上提供支持。这将有助于确保研究对政策和实践的影响最大化。我们的目标不仅是提供有价值的证据，而且还确保证据被了解、理解和学习。应用和益处这项研究涉及重要的公共政策问题，将直接用于公共、私人和非营利部门的决策者和从业人员。我们预计，这项研究计划产生的证据将直接用于：考虑是否以及如何鼓励额外退休储蓄的政策制定者；设计金融产品的私营部门提供商；政策制定者、监管机构和消费者咨询市场，他们关注的是确保消费者做出的财务决策得到适当支持。通过这些影响，这项研究将改善个人的福利，因此具有相当大的社会效益。

ContextHouseholds might need to save for two primary reasons: to insure themselves against adverse events, and to provide resources in retirement. While standard economic models often assume that individuals are able to make rational and well-informed choices with respect to their saving and insurance decisions there is considerable evidence that this is not the case. The extent to which this matters for wellbeing is a key academic question with important policy implications. In the UK individuals have a lot of freedom over when and how they save. The recent removal of the requirement to annuitise accumulated pension wealth gives peopl flexibility over how they draw down their funds through retirement. There is considerable concern about people's ability to make these difficult choices well, specifically that many are undersaving for retirement and that some may draw down their pension pots in retirement too quickly. Stronger evidence in these areas is urgently required in order to inform the current development of retirement saving policies, and the regulatory environment and consumer advice market surrounding pension access in retirement. Aims and objectivesWe propose a programme of research that would use large scale household survey data to produce crucial new evidence for these debates. The first strand will examine the prevalence, persistence and drivers of low liquid wealth, unpicking the relative roles of income levels, pre-committed expenses, family composition and different sources of insurance. We will examine the role such wealth has played in protecting households during the Covid-19 pandemic from financial difficulties. This will shed light on the trade-offs involved in encouraging greater saving for retirement versus policies focussed on encouraging individuals to build up a "rainy day fund". The second strand will assess the drivers and consequences of financial transfers made, during life, between generations. We will quantify the extent of intergenerational insurance of income risk within families during the Covid-19 pandemic. We will then explore the determinants of making transfers, and their effects on the wealth decumulation of givers and wealth accumulation of receivers over a longer period. This allows us to estimate the contribution of transfers to wealth accumulation amongst younger generations and wealth inequalities by family background.The third strand will provide the first comprehensive quantitative assessment of the difference the new pension flexibilities could make to profiles of retirement resources, once people's other wealth and the resources of the wider household are taken into account. We will examine individuals' intentions on how they plan to access their wealth and how the resulting income profiles compare to patterns of spending through retirement among recent generations of retirees. This research will be supported, intellectually and financially, by project partners in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. This will help ensure that the impact of the research on policy and practice is maximised. Our objective is not just to produce valuable evidence, but also to ensure that evidence is known of, understood and learnt from. Applications and benefitsThis research relates to important public policy issues and will be of direct use to policy makers and practitioners in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. We anticipate the evidence produced by this research programme being of direct use to: policy makers considering whether and how to encourage additional retirement saving; private sector providers designing financial products; policy makers, regulators, and the consumer advice market concerned with making sure that consumers are appropriately supported with the financial decisions they make. Through impacts such as these the research will improve the welfare of individuals and therefore be of considerable social benefit.