Financial Regret at Older Ages and Longevity Awareness / Abigail Hurwitz, Olivia S. Mitchell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hurwitz, Abigail.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Mitchell, Olivia S.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w30696.

NBER working paper series no. w30696

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.

Summary:

Many older people express regret about undersaving; here, we extend prior work by reporting regret about five other critical financial topics. Using the Health and Retirement Study, we first show that older people who regret past financial decisions differ significantly from those who do not. Second, in an experiment, we demonstrate that informing people about objective survival probabilities increases regret about not buying lifetime income by 42% overall, and by more among the high income or those in good health. We also document that, for some, providing such information increases regret about having claimed social security early and undersaving. These results may explain previous findings about why survival information can alter financial decisions.

Notes:

Print version record

November 2022.