Household Financial Decisions and Social Security

家庭财务决策和社会保障

• 批准号: 7540504
• 负责人: Alisdair McKay
• 金额: $ 2.71万
• 依托单位: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-05 至 2009-09-04
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7540504
• 关键词: Accounting; Address; Affect; Behavior; Comprehension; Contracts; Data; Decision Making; Economic Models; Equilibrium; Friction; Hand; Heterogeneity; Household; Individual; Light; Modeling; Phase; Purpose; Rate; Research; Retirement; Risk; Savings; Simulate; Social Security; Standards of Weights and Measures; System; Testing; Time; Ursidae Family; Variant; Work; concept; design; financial decision making; improved; programs; safety net; social

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of the proposal is to study how a household's ability to make financial decisions affects its accumulation of assets for retirement and to consider the effects of reforms to the Social Security system given limited and heterogeneous household financial decision making abilities. This work is motivated by recent results that show i) there is considerable heterogeneity in the financial decisions made by households and ii) small differences in rates of return on assets across households generate large differences asset holdings in standard models of saving behavior. The available evidence suggests the heterogeneity in household financial decisions is related to variations in the households' comprehension of financial concepts. The first phase in the proposed research will be to build a model of household saving behavior that incorporates limited and heterogeneous decision-making capacities. This model will be tested by simulating household saving decisions and comparing the results to the observed distribution of wealth across U.S. households. The second phase of the proposed research is to reconsider reforms to the Social Security program in light of the limits to-household decision-making abilities. Proposals to create private Social Security accounts would place a larger decision-making burden on individual households. Households with limited understanding of financial matters may struggle to prepare for retirement under such a system. At the same time, households may respond to such a reform by increasing the effort that they devote to financial decision making. In addition, financial intermediaries may respond to such a reform by changing the products that they offer to households or by changing the terms of those contracts already offered. The proposed research will explore all of these possible effects within the context of the model that will be built in the first phase of the research. The impact of the proposed research will be i) to contribute to the understanding of the determinants of a household's ability to prepare for retirement and ii) to provide an analysis of Social Security reform when households have limited ability to make financial decisions.

说明(申请人提供)：该提案的目的是研究家庭作出财务决策的能力如何影响其为退休积累的资产，并考虑在家庭财务决策能力有限和不同的情况下，社会保障制度改革的影响。这项工作的动机是最近的研究结果，这些结果表明，i)家庭做出的财务决策存在相当大的异质性，ii)家庭之间资产回报率的微小差异导致储蓄行为标准模型中的资产持有量存在很大差异。现有证据表明，家庭财务决策的异质性与家庭对财务概念的理解差异有关。拟议研究的第一阶段将是建立一个包含有限和不同决策能力的家庭储蓄行为模型。这一模型将通过模拟家庭储蓄决策并将结果与观察到的美国家庭财富分配情况进行比较来进行测试。拟议研究的第二阶段是根据家庭决策能力的限制重新考虑社会保障计划的改革。创建私人社保账户的提议将给个人家庭带来更大的决策负担。在这样的制度下，对财务问题了解有限的家庭可能很难为退休做准备。与此同时，家庭可能会通过增加他们对财务决策的投入来回应这样的改革。此外，金融中介机构可能会通过改变它们向家庭提供的产品或改变已经提供的合同的条款来应对这种改革。拟议的研究将在将在研究的第一阶段建立的模型的范围内探索所有这些可能的影响。拟议研究的影响将是：一)有助于理解家庭为退休做准备的能力的决定因素；二)分析家庭作出财务决策的能力有限时的社会保障改革。