ABSTRACT
In conventional social classification, the retired are included among the ‘economically inactive’. That might make it seem that the economic psychology of the post-retirement years would be rather dull. The retired are, by definition, no longer in employment; their consumption needs are presumably modest, and reducing, and they have long been regarded as notoriously non-innovative consumers (Reynaud, 1981); according to economic life-cycle theory, they are living off their savings, not adding to them; and they have no need to gamble to improve a lot which is more or less fixed.
