Personal Saving, Personal Choice

Today the typical American household has only $1,900 in liquid assets. Worse, many families are approaching retirement age with nothing more than anticipated Social Security benefits and home equity. With the very existence of Social Security in jeopardy, how can the average American possibly provide for a secure retirement? Personal Saving, Personal Choiceshows that the economic mechanism is already in place: personal choice in retirement saving Since the 1980s, individual retirement accounts and 401(k) and (403)b plans have changed the way Americans save for retirement. Essays in this volume examine important changes taking place in light of this and reveal Why personal savings accounts should be made a component of Social Security reform, and how this can increase individual and national saving How medical savings accounts, in conjunction with catastrophic health insurance, could help improve the efficiency of health care delivery and also increase personal saving

Matthew J. Eichner is an assistant professor of finance and economics at the Columbia Graduate School of Business. James M. Poterba is the Mitsui Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. John B. Shoven is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Charles R. Schwab Professor of Economics, both at Stanford University. Editor David A. Wise is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the John F. Stambaugh Professor of Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.