Researchers from Columbia Business School and Copenhagen Business School recently published a paper entitled ‘The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: New Evidence from Personal Finances’.
Using aggregated spending, income, account balances, and credit limits data researches investigated how expenditures, liquid savings, and consumer debt change around people’s retirement.
The paper was prepared by using data in co-operation with Meniga’s Data Analytics Team. The study looked at six years of household finances and spending habits in Iceland.
The conclusion derived by researchers Arna Olafsson Copenhagen Business School and Michaela Page from Columbia Business School found that after retirement, retirees were more inclined to reduce consumer debt and increase their liquid savings. The paper has been featured in media such as MarketWatch.
Read the full paper here.
Arna Olafsson researcher at Copenhagen Business School said “As financial instruments proliferate, individuals need to make saving, credit, and insurance choices in an increasingly complex environment. Many fail to do so satisfactorily and household financial distress is widespread.
This has made it clear to policy makers and researchers alike that we need evidence based-research to get a better understanding of individuals financial decision making in order to improve their financial well-being.
Meniga’s data has been invaluable in my research on this topic. After all, we can’t do evidence-based research without the evidence.”
