[This paper investigates the justification for the competitive assumption that consumers will act as price takers by considering the utility gain an individual can achieve by manipulating price formation through the use of non-competitive behavior. Although announcing one's competitive demand is generally not a best replay against the excess demand of the rest of the economy, we show that, as the number of consumers becomes large, the gain any one can achieve acting monopolistically goes to zero if the increase in numbers comes through replication or if the sequence of economies converges to an economy at which the equilibrium price correspondence is continuous.]

Prior research has established that consumption falls significantly at retirement. What is not known is the extent to which this fall is anticipated during the working years. Using data from a new survey, we show that many working households do expect a considerable fall in consumption when they retire. In fact, those who are already retired report significantly smaller falls in consumption than are expected by those who are still working.

ABSTRACT The “annuity puzzle,” conveying the apparently low interest of retirees in longevity insurance, is central to household finance. Two possible explanations are “public care aversion” (PCA), retiree aversion to simultaneously running out of wealth and being in need of long‐term care, and an intentional bequest motive. To disentangle the relative importance of PCA and bequest motive, we estimate a structural model of the retirement phase using a novel survey instrument that includes hypothetical questions. We identify PCA as very significant and find bequest motives that spread deep into the middle class. Our results highlight potential interest in annuities that make allowance for long‐term care expenses.

We develop a survey instrument to measure self-control problems in a sample of highly educated adults. This measure relates in the manner that theory predicts to liquid wealth accumulation and personality measures. Yet while self-control problems are typically seen as resulting in overconsumption and low wealth, we identify a significant group who underconsume and thereby accumulate high levels of wealth. In addition, self-control problems are smaller in scale for older than for younger respondents. Those who put money aside in retirement accounts may be delaying access to a point at which self-control problems are no longer important. (JEL D12, D14)