Economics

How a Harvard Economist Screwed Up—and Then Saved—Her Retirement

Retirement expert Alicia Munnell confesses her "not-so-smart" moves and explains how she recovered. It had nothing to do with stocks or bonds

Alicia Munnell in Paris with her husband, Henry Healy, in 2014.

Source: Alicia Munnell via Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Just because you have a Ph.D. in economics doesn't mean you know how to invest for retirement.

Alicia Munnell, the director of Boston College's Center for Retirement Research, was a member of the president's Council of Economic Advisers for two years before joining Boston College as a professor of management sciences in 1997. Before the council, she was assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy for two years. That was after working for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston for two decades. And that was after getting her Ph.D. at Harvard.