Demography, Asset Allocation, and Investment Horizon: Enduring Lessons from Long History

Abstract

One and a half centuries of evidence suggests that only individuals who start saving for retirement in the later (early) stages of population busts (booms) spend most of their retirement planning phase in bull stock markets with tame inflation and thus benefit greatly from investing in stocks. Demography, particularly the proportional size of aggregate savers as measured by the ratio of the middle-aged to young populations, is a critical, pertinent determinant of intergenerational variations in retirement planning results. Savers, particularly those who do not have a long planning horizon, should incorporate demography in determining the weight of asset classes in their retirement portfolios.

TOPICS: Retirement, portfolio construction