Standard Life-cycle Model Research Articles

Student Loans, Access to Credit, and Consumer Credit Demand

Abstract This paper provides novel evidence that increased student loan debts, caused by rising tuitions, increase borrowers’ demand for additional consumer debt, while simultaneously restricting their ability to access it. The net effect of student loan debt on consumer borrowing varies by market, depending on whether the supply or demand channel dominates. In loosely underwritten credit markets, increased student loan debt causes borrowing to increase, while in tightly underwritten markets, increased student loan debt reduces credit use. These findings match predictions of a standard life cycle model of household consumption and borrowing, augmented by a realistic student loan repayment contract. (JEL G51, D15, I22, D14)

Optimal cryptocurrency portfolio allocation over the life cycle

ABSTRACT Most of the literature on life cycle investment portfolio analysis focuses on the allocation between risky stocks and safe bonds. We introduce a new risky asset class, cryptocurrency, to a standard consumption-investment life cycle model. Our model suggests that the optimal investment profile in cryptocurrencies declines with age. Young investors mainly invest in cryptocurrency. As age and wealth increase, investors transition to mostly stocks mid-career and mostly bonds in retirement. A welfare analysis shows significant utility losses from not participating in the cryptocurrency market or not adjusting cryptocurrency portfolio shares throughout the life cycle.

Evidence of behavioural life-cycle features in spending patterns after retirement

Using data on stated preferences on the decumulation of pension wealth after retirement, we estimate a stylized structural life-cycle model incorporating several behavioural features. In the stated choice questions, pension income is in the form of a constant annuity, a “high-low” annuity that falls from a higher to a lower level five years into retirement, or a “low-high” annuity that does the reverse. This creates variation in liquid and illiquid wealth. Respondents are asked to choose among several expenditure patterns in the first ten years after retirement. We find that the respondents do not behave in the way the standard life-cycle model would predict. They respond to the variation in how they receive their income have a tendency to follow the rule of thumb of going for the middle choice alternative. Moreover, they value illiquid wealth much less than liquid wealth at the ten years time horizon.

The rationality of rainy day savers: objective and subjective determinants of individual savings in Britain

ABSTRACT Using the largest and richest data on savings in Great Britain, six waves of the Wealth and Assets Survey from the Office for National Statistics, we compare standard life cycle models of saving with models using more ‘subjective’ measures, and the added dimension of longitudinal data. Whilst the life cycle model provides a benchmark, regular criticisms remain, particularly people’s propensity to continue saving at older ages. Data on attitudes attenuate that issue, and panel data largely eliminate it. Our results confirm empirically, for Great Britain, the importance of some of the objective determinants of savings included in life cycle theory. When we look at more subjective ones, we show that other factors, including self-rated health and financial pressure, provide an enhanced direct explanation of the propensity to save. Individuals who regard themselves as ‘rainy day savers’ tended to save more, irrespective of their demographic or financial circumstances. Results are robust to different specifications.

The impact of the shift to cloud computing on digital recordkeeping practices at the University of Michigan Bentley historical library.

Cloud-based productivity, collaboration, and storage tools offer increased opportunities for collaboration and potential cost-savings over locally hosted solutions and have seen widespread adoption throughout industry, government, and academia over the last decade. While these tools benefit organizations, IT departments, and day-to-day-users, they present unique challenges for records managers and archivists. As a review of the relevant literature demonstrates, issues surrounding cloud computing are not limited to the technology—although the implementation and technological issues are numerous—but also include organization management, human behavior, regulation, and records management, making the process of archiving digital information in this day and age all the more difficult. This paper explores some of the consequences of this shift and its effect on digital recordkeeping at the Bentley Historical Library, whose mission is to “collect the materials for the University of Michigan.” After providing context for this problem by discussing relevant literature, two practicing archivists will explore the impact of the move toward cloud computing as well as various productivity software and collaboration tools in use at U-M throughout the various stages of a standard lifecycle model for managing records.

A Comparative Study of Saving Behaviour Between India and China

This study attempts to understand the determinants of saving behaviour using the Global Findex micro-database of India and China. Further, this study has also tried to identify the gender gap in saving behaviour for both the countries. Empirical (pooled logistic regression) results suggest that being rich, educated, employed and old favour saving than others. Women are more prone to save informally than men. The main contribution of this article is the analytical comparison between India and China, which demonstrates that in terms of saving Chinese adults are ahead of Indian adults. However, informal saving is more prevalent in India. The gender gap in saving behaviour is higher in China than in India. Our research also discovered that China’s age saving pattern is U-shaped, that is, younger and older are more likely to save than the middle-aged, which contradicts the standard life cycle model whereas this model holds for India.

Wealth and Consumption After Job Displacement

AbstractIncome drops permanently after an involuntary job displacement, but it has never been clear what happens to long run wealth in the USA. Upon displacement, wealth falls 14% relative to workers of the same age and similar education from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Their wealth is still 18% lower 12 years after the event. A standard life cycle model calibrated to US data with permanent decreases in income after displacement behaves differently than these findings. The agents in the model also experience a large drop in wealth but they recover. The biggest culprit for these differences is small and statistically insignificant changes to consumption in the PSID whereas agents in the model decrease their consumption considerably. Extending the model to include habit formation reconciles some of these differences by generating similar long run effects on wealth. This allows for the examination of wealth at death through the lens of the model.

Student Loans, Access to Credit and Consumer Financial Behavior

<ns3:p>This paper provides novel evidence that increased student loan debts, caused by rising tuitions, increase borrowers' demand for additional consumer debt, while simultaneously restricting their ability to access it. The net effect of student loan debt on consumer borrowing varies by market, depending on whether the supply or demand channel dominates. In loosely underwritten credit markets, increased student loan debt causes borrowing to increase, while in tightly underwritten markets, increased student loan debt reduces the use of credit. These findings match predictions of a standard lifecycle model of household consumption and borrowing, augmented with a realistic student loan repayment contract.</ns3:p>

Differential Rates of Return and Racial Wealth Inequality

Using data on household balance sheets from the Survey of Consumer Finances and data on macroeconomic rates of return from Jordà et al. (Q J Econ. 134(3):1225–1298, 2019) we construct two alternative series for household rates of return by race from 1989 to 2016. Our estimates suggest a persistent racial gap in the rate of return on assets between 1 and 4 percentage points. The gap in returns remains even after conditioning on demographic factors, labor market factors, credit history, portfolio composition, household attitudes toward savings, financial literacy, and inheritance—suggestive of a role for discrimination. Recentered influence function (RIF) decompositions indicate between 40 and 53%—1.2 to 1.6 percentage points—of the difference in median returns between Black and White households is unexplained by observable characteristics. A standard Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition suggests that differential rates of return can explain up to 14% of the racial wealth gap at the mean. Finally, our data on differential rates of return allow us to effectively rule out explanations for the racial wealth gap based on myopia or excessive time preference. Given observed series for consumption and rates of return, a standard lifecycle model requires Black households to discount the future less than White households in order to match the data.

Mortality decline, productivity increase, and positive feedback between schooling and retirement choices

AbstractThe twentieth century has seen a phenomenal decline in mortality and an increase in productivity level. These two important events likely affect people's choices of schooling years and retirement age. We first show that in a standard life-cycle model, positive feedback exists between optimal schooling years and retirement age choices. We then evaluate the impact of a mortality or productivity shock on an endogenous variable (schooling years or retirement age) by decomposing it into the direct and indirect effects, where the indirect effect arises from feedback from the other endogenous variable. Finally, we extend the model by including the utility benefit of schooling and show that a negative correlation of schooling years and retirement age is possible. Apart from clarifying the apparently similar concepts of positive co-movement and positive feedback, our results have implications relevant to the economic demography literature.

What Can Explain the Hump-Shaped Job Search Intensities Over the Life-Cycle?

This paper explores the puzzling inverted U-shape job search profile for U.S. data. It is well established that the standard life-cycle incomplete market model is incapable of explaining this phenomenon because of the wealth effect. I argue two channels to explain the puzzle: (i) the resolution of perceived risks through Bayesian learning, and (ii) wealth accumulation in the incomplete market over the life-cycle. To support this, I empirically and analytically show that unemployed job seekers devote less efforts to find jobs under higher uncertainty and wealth.

Revisiting the Consumption Puzzle: Evidence for Spain

We examine empirically the path of consumption growth over time by looking at detailed microdata for the Spanish economy. We estimate different versions of a Euler equation linking consumption growth to the real interest rate and other socioeconomic and demographic variables. We work with two thorough datasets of microdata which compile rich economic, social and demographic information for households over two periods, 1977-1983 and 1985-1996. We find that consumption growth displays a positive and significant correlation with the interest rate, implying an intertemporal elasticity of substitution in the range 0.30-0.576, consistent with the literature. Our estimations also show that consumption growth is negatively correlated with retirement, thus suggesting a discontinuity in consumption which implies a departure from the standard life cycle model. Policy reforms which increase the level of real pensions have a positive impact on consumption. Results are robust to alternative specifications and control variables, and suggest the presence of precautionary saving over 1977-83.

Consumption Insurance against Wage Risk: Family Labor Supply and Optimal Progressive Income Taxation

We show that a calibrated life cycle two-earner household model with endogenous labor supply can rationalize the extent of consumption insurance against shocks to male and female wages, as estimated empirically by Blundell, Pistaferri, and Saporta-Eksten (2016) in US data. In the model, 35 percent of male and 18 percent of female permanent wage shocks pass through to consumption, compared to the empirical estimates of 32 percent and 19 percent. Most of the consumption insurance against permanent male wage shocks is provided through the presence and labor supply response of the female earner. Abstracting from this private intrahousehold income insurance mechanism strongly biases upward the welfare losses from idiosyncratic wage risk as well as the desired extent of public insurance through progressive income taxation. Relative to the standard one-earner life cycle model, the optimal degree of tax progressivity is significantly lower and the welfare gains from implementing the optimal system are cut roughly in half. (JEL D15, H21, H24, J16, J22, J31)

The Long Shadows of the Great Inflation: Evidence from Residential Mortgages

A major puzzle in financial contracting is consumers' aversion to adjustable rates. In the mortgage market, the empirical mix of contracts (80% fixed-rate) is inconsistent with standard life-cycle consumption models. We argue that these choices reflect the longlasting effect of the Great Inflation, and have sizable welfare implications. First, we show that consumers who have experienced higher inflation expect higher future interest-rate increases, which explains their preference for fixed-rate financing. Next, we quantify the influence of personal inflation experiences on mortgage financing using linked data from the Census Bureau's Residential Finance Survey. We estimate a discrete-choice model over mortgage financing alternatives. The structural parameters indicate that one additional percentage point of experienced inflation increases a borrower's willingness to pay for a fixed-rate mortgage by 6 to 14 basis points, compared to the adjustable-rate alternative in a given origination year. This experience effect has a major impact on the product mix of FRMs versus ARMs: Nearly one in seven households would switch to an ARM if not for the longlasting effect of personal inflation experiences. Our simulations suggest that households who would otherwise have switched pay $8,000-$16,000 in year-2000, after-tax dollars for the embedded inflation protection of the FRM.

Consumption in Retirement: Heterogeneous Effects by Household Type and Gender

The standard life-cycle model suggests that individuals will smooth consumption over their lifetime in response to expected income changes, such as retirement. We investigate the heterogeneous impact of retirement on a broad range of consumption categories in one- and two-adult households in Ireland from 1987 to 2016. Total consumption declines by 13% for two-adult households where the other (non-retiring) adult is not in employment. There is no significant effect in two-adult households where the other adult is working. Spending for single retirees declines by considerably more, at approximately 30%. This is due to lower spending on meals outside the home, leisure and holidays. Our analysis reveals gender differences, with declines in leisure and holiday spending occurring among single male retirees only. This is potentially concerning as it may point towards social isolation in retirement. While all household types experience lower spending on meals outside the home, expenditure on food consumed at home is unaffected. Retired households appear to smooth overall food consumption by devoting a greater percentage of their income to home food consumption.

Differential Rates of Return and Racial Wealth Inequality

Using data on household balance sheets from the Survey of Consumer Finances and data on macroeconomic rates of return from Jorda et al. (2019) we construct two alternative series for household rates of return by race from 1989 to 2016. Our estimates suggest a persistent racial gap in the rate of return on assets between 1 and 4 percentage points. The gap in returns remains even after conditioning on demographic factors, labor market factors, credit history, portfolio composition, household attitudes toward savings, financial literacy, and inheritance---suggestive of a role for discrimination. Recentered influence function (RIF) decompositions indicate between 40% and 53%---1.2 to 1.6 percentage points---of the difference in median returns between Black and White households is unexplained by observable characteristics. A standard Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition suggests that differential rates of return can explain up to 14% of the racial wealth gap at the mean. Finally, our data on differential rates of return allow us to effectively rule out explanations for the racial wealth gap based on myopia or excessive time preference. Given observed series for consumption and rates of return, a standard lifecycle model requires Black households to discount the future less than White households in order to match the data.

Optimal annuitization with imperfect information about insolvency risk

AbstractEven the highest‐rated life‐annuity providers have a nonzero probability of becoming insolvent during an annuitant's retirement, and many potential annuitants are unaware of the state guaranty associations (SGAs) which provide insurance against the associated financial consequences. We study the theoretical implications of insolvency risk—real and perceived—for annuitization. Then, using a disciplined calibration of annuitant misperceptions in a standard life cycle model, we show that even the modest perceived risk of default associated with highly‐rated providers can—absent awareness of the SGAs—reduce annuitization and significantly reduce welfare. We further consider the implications of information frictions which prevent retirees from discerning true insolvency risk and we find that these frictions have plausibly large additional quantitative implications for annuitization and welfare. Simulations of our model further suggest that the general lack of awareness of the SGA backstop by potential annuitants can erode a sizable fraction of the potential welfare benefits thereof.

Housing Wealth Effects: The Long View

AbstractWe provide new time-varying estimates of the housing wealth effect back to the 1980s. We use three identification strategies: ordinary least squares with a rich set of controls, the Saiz housing supply elasticity instrument, and a new instrument that exploits systematic differences in city-level exposure to regional house price cycles. All three identification strategies indicate that housing wealth elasticities were if anything slightly smaller in the 2000s than in earlier time periods. This implies that the important role housing played in the boom and bust of the 2000s was due to larger price movements rather than an increase in the sensitivity of consumption to house prices. Full-sample estimates based on our new instrument are smaller than recent estimates, though they remain economically important. We find no significant evidence of a boom–bust asymmetry in the housing wealth elasticity. We show that these empirical results are consistent with the behaviour of the housing wealth elasticity in a standard life-cycle model with borrowing constraints, uninsurable income risk, illiquid housing, and long-term mortgages. In our model, the housing wealth elasticity is relatively insensitive to changes in the distribution of loan-to-value (LTV) for two reasons: first, low-leverage homeowners account for a substantial and stable part of the aggregate housing wealth elasticity; second, a rightward shift in the LTV distribution increases not only the number of highly sensitive constrained agents but also the number of underwater agents whose consumption is insensitive to house prices.

Experience-based Learning, Stock Market Participation and Portfolio Choice

Recent evidence suggests that lifetime experiences play an important role in determining households' investment choices. I incorporate these findings and the fact that household portfolios are underdiversified into an otherwise standard life-cycle model and examine to what extent they can help resolve long-standing puzzles in the literature regarding stock market participation and the fraction of financial wealth invested in risky assets. I show that experience-based learning about returns creates a positive correlation between a household's position in the wealth distribution and its optimism about future returns. The wealthy consequently increase their investment in risky assets, while participation is limited among poor households. I find that in a reasonably calibrated quantitative model, this mechanism is able to close approximately half of the gap between participation rates observed in the data and the predictions from standard models. On the other hand, the average conditional risky share remains mostly unaffected.

Explaining intergenerational mobility: The role of fertility and family transfers

Poor families have more children and transfer less resources to them. This suggests that family decisions about fertility and transfers dampen intergenerational mobility. To evaluate the quantitative importance of this mechanism, we extend the standard heterogeneous-agent life cycle model with earnings risk and credit constraints to allow for endogenous fertility, family transfers, and education. The model, estimated to the US in the 2000s, implies that a counterfactual flat income-fertility profile would—through the equalization of initial conditions—increase intergenerational mobility by 6%. The impact of a counterfactual constant transfer per child is twice as large.