Time is money: Rational life cycle inertia and the delegation of investment management.
Many households display inertia in investment management over their life cycles. Our calibrated dynamic life cycle portfolio choice model can account for such an apparently 'irrational' outcome, by incorporating the fact that investors must forgo acquiring job-specific skills when they spend time managing their money, and their efficiency in financial decision making varies with age. Resulting inertia patterns mesh well with findings from prior studies and our own empirical results from Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data. We also analyze how people optimally choose between actively managing their assets versus delegating the task to financial advisors. Delegation proves valuable to both the young and the old. Our calibrated model quantifies welfare gains from including investment time and money costs as well as delegation in a life cycle setting.
SKK Graduate School of Business, Sungkyunkwan (SKK) University, 25-2 Sungkyunkwan-ro, Seoul 03063, Republic of Korea; Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.
Hugh Hoikwang
HH
Kim
Finance Department, Goethe University, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1 (Uni-PF. H 23), 60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Raimond
R
Maurer
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, & NBER, 3620 Locust Walk, 3000 SH-DH, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Olivia S
OS
Mitchell
Financial advice; Household finance; Human capital; Life cycle saving; Portfolio inertia