Does Stock Market Performance Influence Retirement Intentions?

Gopi Shah Goda, John B. Shoven, Sita Nataraj Slavov

NBER Working Paper No. 16211
Issued in July 2010
NBER Program(s):   AG   PE

Media reports predicted that the stock market decline in October 2008 would cause changes in retirement intentions, due to declines in retirement assets. We use panel data from the Health and Retirement Study to investigate the relationship between stock market performance and retirement intentions during 1998-2008, a period that includes the recent crisis. While we find a weak negative correlation between stock returns and retirement intentions, further investigation suggests that this relationship is not driven by wealth shocks brought about by stock market fluctuations, but by other factors that are correlated with both the stock market and retirement intentions.

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Published: Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2012. "Does Stock Market Performance Influence Retirement Intentions?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(4), pages 1055-1081.

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This paper was revised on February 23, 2012

Acknowledgments

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