2005
Social Security Privatization with Elastic Labor Supply and Second-Best Taxes
WP 2005-092 , UM04-02
This paper shows that many common methods of privatizing social security fail to reduce labor market distortions when taxes are second best, challenging a key reason to privatize. Ironically, providing "transition relief" to workers alive at the time of the…
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Measuring Social Security’s Financial Problems
WP 2005-093 , UM04-04
The U.S. Social Security system has helped keep many retirees out of poverty. However, according to the Social Security and Medicare Trustees, Social Security faces a future financial shortfall of $10.4 trillion in present value. This enormous imbalance has received…
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Saving Shortfalls and Delayed Retirement
WP 2005-094 , UM04-C1
Prior research has suggested that many older Americans have not saved enough to maintain consumption levels in old age. One way older persons might respond to inadequate savings would be to extend their worklives by delaying retirement. This paper examines…
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The Impact of the 1972 Social Security Benefit Increase in Household Consumption
WP 2005-095 , UM04-05
This paper examines the consumption response to the 1972 Social Security benefit increase. Nominal benefits were increased by 20 percent while annual cost of living adjustments (COLAs) were contemporaneously implemented and scheduled to begin in less than three years. Taken…
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Changes in Consumption and Activities in Retirement
WP 2005-096 , UM04-13
The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires “consumption smoothing.” According to previous results based on partial spending and on synthetic panels, British and U.S. households apparently reduce consumption at retirement. The reduction cannot be explained by the simple one-good…
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Valuing Lost Home Production in Dual-Earner Couples
WP 2005-097 , UM04-14
Economists’ principal tool for studying household behavioral responses to changes in tax and other government policies, and the magnitude and determinants of private saving, is the life-cycle model. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to incorporate into that…
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Estimating Life-Cycle Parameters from Consumption Behavior at Retirement
WP 2005-099 , UM02-03
Using pseudo-panel data, we estimate the structural parameters of a life-cycle consumption model with discrete labor supply choice. A focus of our analysis is the abrupt drop in consumption upon retirement for a typical household. The literature sometimes refers to…
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Do Individual Accounts Postpone Retirement: Evidence from Chile
WP 2005-098 , UM04-07
Postponing retirement will become increasingly important as a means to increase labor force, its output and old age security, as populations age. Recent research has focused on incentives stemming from the social security system that influence the worker’s decision to…
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Knowledge and Preference in Reporting Financial Information
WP 2005-100 , UM04-10
This article models respondent behavior in a financial survey with a framework explicitly integrating a respondent’s knowledge of and willingness to reveal his or her financial status. Whether a respondent provides a valid answer, a “don’t know”, or a “refusal”…
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Enhancing the Quality of Data on Income and Wealth
WP 2005-101 , UM04-10
Over the last decade or so, a substantial effort has gone into the design of a series of methodological investigations aimed at enhancing the quality of survey data on income and wealth. These investigations have largely been conducted at the…
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