September 2013
Abstract: Many individuals lack the financial know-how to manage the complex new financial products increasingly available in the financial marketplace. How people borrow and manage debt has become of increasing policy maker concern, given recent evidence on Americans’ over-indebtedness. As a consequence, some have suggested that older persons today are much more likely to enter retirement age in debt compared to decades past. Our new paper seeks to empirically evaluate the factors associated with older individuals’ debt and debt management practices, and whether (and how) these patterns have changed significantly over time.