35  It is likely that, as a significant fraction of wealth is accumulated in real estate and financial assets, households’ exposure to asset price movements will tend to increase. This might coincide with a situation in which a large fraction of the population – in their old-age dissaving phase – are selling assets in order to finance consumption during retirement.
In this respect, some authors have warned that, when the baby-boom generation retires and starts to dissave, excess supply in financial markets could contribute to a significant decline in asset prices, the consequences of which might be felt by the entire population (Siegel (1998), Abel (2001) and (2003), Börsch-Supan and Winter (2001), and Bean (2004)). This view is known as the “asset meltdown” hypothesis.