Robert Shiller is an American economist and professor of economics at Yale University. According to his wikipedia profile he is ranked among the 100 most influential economists in the world. I was recently reading his book “Irrational Exuberance” the second edition when I read the following under the heading, “Retirement Plans Should Be Put on a Sounder Footing.”
On page 222 he writes, “Authorities who are responsible for pension plans (including agencies like the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation in the United States or the Pension Protection fund in the United Kingdom) should come out strongly against over-reliance on the stock market. They should instead recommend greater diversification and suggest that a substantial fraction of balances be put into safe investments, such as inflation indexed government bonds. They should promote inflation-indexed retirement annuities and urge retirees to take the retirement income in this form.”
In my book I describe how ultra-conservative retirees can create an income stream by laddering annuities and adjusting their income for inflation. Of course I wrote my book after Robert Shiller wrote “Irrational Exuberance,” but it sure is validating when one of the top economists in the world writes that our government should urge the use of inflation-indexed retirement annuities.
