Pensions and the Non-Pension Wealth of American Families

本项目开发了一个简单的框架，突出了家庭养老金财富与非养老金财富之间的关系。该框架说明了先前研究这种关系的工作可能出现的潜在问题。如果一些家庭受到信贷约束（在简单模型中，这将显示养老金和非养老金财富之间没有关系），而一些家庭不受约束（在简单模型中，这将具有美元对美元的养老金抵消），那么根据传统规范估计的养老金和非养老金财富之间的相关性甚至不一定受到适用于每种人口类型的相关性的限制。该框架被用来指定一个实证模型，表征养老金和非养老金财富之间的关系。该模型是根据健康与退休研究的数据估计的。本研究的实证部分探讨了估计的稳健性，仔细考虑了人口异质性，并采用不同的方法来估计潜在的参数。该研究区分了固定缴款型（DC）养老金财富、固定受益型（DB）养老金财富和社会保障型财富。由于与这些养老金来源相关的风险不同，它们可能对财富产生不同的影响。本研究的延伸探讨了1992年至1998年间的资产重估如何与代际转移、储蓄以及对退休和遗赠的预期相关。这项工作将为影响老年家庭在退休后维持其生活水平的能力的因素和影响国民储蓄的因素提供新的见解。

This project develops a simple framework that highlights the ways that household pension wealth is related to non-pension wealth. The framework illustrates potential problems that may arise with previous work examining this relationship. If some households are credit constrained (which, in a simple model, would show no relationship between pension and non-pension wealth) and some households are unconstrained (which, in a simple model, would have dollar-for-dollar pension offsets), the correlation between pension and non-pension wealth estimated from conventional specifications is not necessarily even bounded by the correlations that apply to each population type. The framework is used to specify an empirical model that characterizes the relationship between pension and non-pension wealth. The model is estimated using data from the Health and Retirement Study. The empirical portion of this study explores the robustness of estimates, accounts carefully for population heterogeneity and takes different approaches to estimating the underlying parameters. The work distinguishes between defined contribution (DC) pension wealth, defined benefit pension (DB) wealth, and social security wealth. Due to different risks associated with these pension sources, they may have different effects on wealth. Extensions to this work explore how asset revaluations between 1992 and 1998 are correlated with intergenerational transfers, saving and expectations about retirement and bequests. The work will provide new insights into factors affecting the ability of elderly households to maintain their standard of living in retirement and into factors influencing national saving.