Project Year: 2000

This study utilizes a large set of subjective probability questions from the Health and Retirement Survey to construct an index measuring the precision of probabilistic beliefs (PPB) and relates this index to household choices about the riskiness of their portfolios...

The leading theory used to understand retirement decisions is the life cycle model, which suggests that people save during their working years, when their income is high, so that they will have money to spend during their retirement, when their income is low. An...

Abstract for first paper: In order to understand whom among the non-disabled older population experiences a health problem later in life and applies for Social Security Disability Insurance, it is necessary to investigate patterns of coverage and reasons for...

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, this paper measures knowledge about future social security and pension benefits by comparing respondent reports of their expected benefits with benefits calculated from social security earnings records and employer...

We have found modest effects of widowhood events on loss of health insurance. There are also modest effects of widowhood on labor supply, which we have not as yet attempted to attribute to insurance demand. Even new widowhood events, however, are not random with...

Work in the marketplace is the primary source of income for most households in modern industrial societies. A permanent or even a long-term exit from work by a household’s principal earner is therefore a potentially risky event. Most countries now have a mix of...

Two models dominate the economics literature on why people save (and hence on why they accumulate wealth). In one, the life–cycle model, people save when they are young in order to have funds to support their retirement. In the other, the dynastic model, households...

The empirical literature on DI has primarily focused on the impact of program parameters on caseload growth or reduced labor force attachment. The focus on the efficiency costs of DI provides a misleading view of the social desirability of the program itself and of...

The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) system is designed to provide income security to workers in the event that health problems prevent them from working. In order to qualify for benefits, applicants must pass a medical screening that is intended to verify...

This study explores whether the timing of retirement responds to unexpected changes in wealth. Although the normality of leisure is a standard assumption in economic models, econometric support for it has not been consistent. The period of the 1990s allows a...

This paper further extends our efforts to understand how household decision-making works and the relation of decisions made within the household to incentives from Social Security and pensions. A structural model of family retirement decision making is es

Traditional economic models treat the household as a single individual, and do not allow for separate preferences of and possible conflicts of interest between husbands and wives. Since wives are typically younger than their husbands and life expectancy for women...

In this study, we compute distributions of rates of return by cohort for the Social Security retirement system, using a combination of historical data and stochastic forecasts of productivity and mortality rates. Since our forecasts of productivity and mortality are...