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

家庭可能需要储蓄的主要原因有两个：一是为了防止不利事件的发生，二是为了在退休后提供资源。虽然标准的经济模型通常假设个人能够在储蓄和保险决策方面做出理性和充分知情的选择，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福祉是一个具有重要政策影响的关键学术问题。在英国，个人在何时以及如何储蓄方面有很大的自由。最近取消了对积累的养老金财富进行年金化的要求，这给了人们在退休后如何提取资金的灵活性。人们非常担心人们是否有能力做出这些艰难的选择，特别是许多人为退休储蓄不足，有些人可能会在退休后过快地提取养老金。迫切需要这些领域的更有力证据，以便为当前退休储蓄政策的发展以及围绕退休养老金获取的监管环境和消费者咨询市场提供信息。Aims and ObjectivesWe提出了一个研究方案，将使用大规模的家庭调查数据，为这些辩论提供重要的新证据。第一部分将研究低流动性财富的普遍性、持续性和驱动因素，分析收入水平、预先承诺的支出、家庭组成和不同保险来源的相对作用。我们将研究这些财富在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间保护家庭免受财务困难方面所发挥的作用。这将揭示鼓励更多退休储蓄与鼓励个人建立“雨天基金”的政策之间的权衡。第二部分将评估在人的一生中，代际之间资金转移的驱动因素和后果。我们将量化新冠肺炎疫情期间家庭内收入风险的代际保险程度。然后，我们将探讨进行转移的决定因素，以及它们在较长时期内对给予者财富积累和接受者财富积累的影响。这使我们能够估计转移对年轻一代财富积累的贡献以及家庭背景的财富不平等。第三部分将首次全面定量评估新的养老金灵活性对退休资源状况的影响，一旦考虑到人们的其他财富和更广泛的家庭资源。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如何与最近几代退休人员的退休支出模式进行比较。这项研究将得到公共、私营和非营利部门项目伙伴的智力和财政支持。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，而且要确保证据被了解，理解和学习。该研究涉及重要的公共政策问题，并将直接用于公共，私营和非营利部门的政策制定者和从业人员。我们预计这项研究计划产生的证据将直接用于：政策制定者考虑是否以及如何鼓励额外的退休储蓄;私营部门提供者设计金融产品;政策制定者，监管机构和消费者咨询市场，确保消费者在做出财务决策时得到适当的支持。通过这些影响，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.