The wealth decumulation behavior of the retired elderly in Italy. The importance of bequest motives and precautionary saving
In this paper, we analyze the wealth accumulation and saving behavior of the retired elderly in Italy using micro data from the “Survey of Italian Households’ Income and Wealth,” a panel survey of households conducted every 2 years by the Bank of Italy. We find that, on average, the retired elderly in Italy are decumulating their wealth (dissaving) but that their wealth decumulation rates are much slower than expected. Moreover, we also find that more than 40% of the retired elderly in Italy are continuing to accumulate wealth and that more than 80% are doing positive amounts of saving.