2013

We develop a rich model to study the complex interrelationship between health insurance and retirement decisions. The decision to retire depends on a number of factors including availability of health insurance, health shocks, pensions, Social Security, and how consumption and…

We propose to analyze how close Social Security’s adjustments to old-age, spouse’s, and survivor’s benefits are to actuarial fairness for workers and their (surviving) spouses. Using cohort life table data and mortality projections, we will assess the actuarial fairness of…

This research has direct implications for policies aimed at increasing the welfare of the elderly and disabled who use long-term care. There are likely strong linkages between various policies that provide old-age support, e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Supplemental…

This research project has three goals. The first is to assemble rich evidence on how the Great Recession affected labor market outcomes and the retirement-related behavior of older workers, and the channels by which the labor market effects occurred (dismissals,…

The objective of this proposed research is to estimate the effect of expectations on consumption. We will use low frequency data on expectations, consumption (spending) and economic resources from the Health and Retirement Study and high frequency data from the…

Several key macroeconomic variables such as unemployment rate, inflation and wage growth are thought to have significant and persistent effects on individuals’ retirement choices. This proposal seeks to use the SSA’s Continuous Work History Sample (CWHS) data (in conjunction with…

This project will estimate the effects of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) provisions of Social Security on the retirement preparedness of affected workers and their households. These provisions reduce own, spouse and survivor benefits under…

This project will make both substantive and methodological contributions to the study of idiosyncratic income risk. Substantively, the project will use a panel dataset on labor earnings from administrative records that has three key advantages: (i) a very large sample…

In recent decades, financial markets have become increasingly accessible to individual consumers, as new products and financial services have come on the market. Nonetheless, many of these products are complex and difficult to grasp, especially for financially unsophisticated individuals. Of…

The goal of this project is to explore the efficacy of two technological approaches to promote voluntary saving in 401(k) retirement accounts. Working with Vanguard, a leading 401(k) plan administrator, we will evaluate the impact of two new retirement saving…