Prudence and the demand for incentivized retirement investment accounts

Abstract

Many national governments have a stated policy goal of increasing voluntary retirement savings. Tax-incentivized schemes, that require investors to forego liquidity of its balance in exchange for higher total returns, are its main implementation tool. Precautionary savings, however, might deter participation in these voluntary schemes. Individuals could differ in their willingness to accept the iliquidity constraint required to participate in the investing scheme. They might prefer keeping savings as cash when facing high short-term income uncertainty. We develop a tractable model where subjects can save on interest-free cash accounts and/or on interest-paying iliquid pension accounts, while facing income uncertainty between the investment decision and the availability of withdraws of incentivized savings. We use numerical simulation and contextual experiments to investigate how prudence in face of uncertainty and the implicit returns of pension accounts contribute to participation (or lack thereof) on incentivized savings schemes.

Andre Lot

Ph.D Research Scholar in Finance

I am a Ph.D candidate on the academic Finance job market in the 2022-23 cycle.