e-Publications@Marquette

Title

Investment Performance Comparison Between Roth and Traditional Individual Retirement Accounts

Authors

George Kutner, Marquette UniversityFollow
Lloyd Doney, Marquette UniversityFollow
James Trebby, Marquette UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 2001

Source Publication

Journal of Applied Business Research

Source ISSN

0892-7626

Abstract

With the recent introduction of the Roth Individual Retirement Account (IRA) along with a significantly improved Traditional IRA, there has been considerable interest in comparing the performance of these investment vehicles. Some confusion regarding these comparisons has evolved. In this paper we show that this confusion may be attributed to scale and tax differences between the two investment vehicles. We adjust for these differences by focusing on the after-tax rate-of-return on investment for each IRA vehicle. We find that performance depends crucially on the relationship between an individual's tax rates at the time of investment and at the time of withdrawal.

Comments

Published version. Journal of Applied Business Research, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Winter 2001): 55-60. DOI. © 2001 Clute Institute. Used with permission.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Kutner, George; Doney, Lloyd; and Trebby, James, "Investment Performance Comparison Between Roth and Traditional Individual Retirement Accounts" (2001). Accounting Faculty Research and Publications. 26.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/account_fac/26