The Alignment of Household Preferences and Financial Decisions Leading up to Retirement

Abstract

We report on research that links survey and administrative data to investigate how within-couple differences in preferences and financial decision-making abilities affect household finances. We study whether within-household differences in preferences or financial decision-making abilities influence household choices and, thus, retirement readiness. Initial results indicate that, while individual variation in saving and portfolio preferences and decision-making ability is significantly related to individual variation in financial outcomes, there is only modest evidence that within-household variation in these measures is associated with between-household differences in expenditure, liquidity, and outcomes.