2006 | MRDRC

Project

2006

The Role of Spousal Health Insurance Provision in Retirement Decisions

Health insurance coverage in the years prior to retirement is particularly important because it protects the household from the financial risks of uninsurance as well as the health consequences of delaying care while uninsured. While results from the retirement...

Authors: Jody Schimmel Hyde,

Project

2006

Assessing the Risks and the Costs of the Risks Posed by Social Security’s Potential Insolvency

Social Security must raise taxes or cut benefits, either now or later, to close its $11.1 trillion funding gap. This project measures the welfare effects of alternative adjustments and the costs of delaying the decision. Part 1 uses the Survey of Consumer Finances in...

Authors: Laurence Kotlikoff,

Project

2006

Evaluating Social Security Reforms using Probabilistic Population Forecasts in a Life-cycle Model of Social Insurance

The extent of the Social Security crisis, defined by the depletion of the trust fund and the long-run sustainability of the system, depends on a set of demographic and economic assumptions. A scenario-based approach is commonly considered in order to get a rough feel...

Authors: Hugo Benítez-Silva, Debra Sabatini Dwyer, Warren Sanderson,

Project

2006

Health Risk in Retirement and Retirement Wealth

With the approaching retirement of the baby boom cohort and concerns about the solvency of Social Security, there has been growing interest in understanding savings behavior. Being able to characterize the underlying motivation for savings will be important to...

Authors: Purvi Sevak, Lina Walker,

Project

2006

Who Annuitizes and How Do System Rules Shape These Choices? The Case of Chile

Annuitization is often considered socially desirable as a payout mode from pension plans, because it provides a lifelong income stream and therefore ensures that retirees will not run out of money. However, myopia and adverse selection may deter annuitization. This...

Authors: Estelle James, Alejandra Cox Edwards,

Project

2006

Retirement Savings Portfolio Management

Proposals for private investment of Social Security contributions predict greater individual returns than would arise under the current system, yet much empirical evidence suggests that many individuals do not make sound investment decisions. To address the future...

Authors: Jeff Dominitz, Angela Hung,

Project

2006

Rising Economic Risk and the Labor Supply of Older Workers

Changes in social insurance systems affect the ways in which individuals self-insure against undesirable economic outcomes. One’s ability to work is an important means of self-insurance, and, as policy changes to Social Security are considered that might directly or...

Authors: Nicole Maestas,

Project

2006

The Dynamics of Work-Related Health and Labor Market Status: An International Comparison

Many western industrialized countries face strong budgetary pressures due to the aging of the baby boom generations and the general trends in many of these countries toward earlier ages of retirement. The commonality of these problems, however, has the advantage of...

Authors: James P. Smith, Arthur van Soest, Arie Kapteyn, James Banks,

Project

2006

Using New Measures of Fatness to Improve Estimates of Early Entry onto the OASI Rolls

Obesity is rapidly rising, as are the medical conditions associated with it. We test whether fatness has a causal impact on early retirement and entry onto OASI rolls using a model of instrumental variables, in which the fatness of a PSID respondent’s child is...

Authors: Richard Burkhauser, John Cawley,

Project

2006

Trading Behavior in Personal Accounts: Lessons from 401(k) Pension Participants

This project will illustrate how participant and plan characteristics shape trading behavior in retirement accounts in the existing 401(k) plan system. Individually-managed 401(k) accounts are the most widespread form of pension saving in America, now covering more...

Authors: Olivia S. Mitchell,

Project

2006

Personal Social Security Accounts: Quantifying the Macro and Efficiency Effects II

In previous work, the authors found that a partial (50 percent) privatization of Social Security can lead to sizable efficiency gains in the presence of insurable wage shocks, due to improved labor supply incentives. But when, more realistically, wage shocks are not...

Authors: Kent Smetters,

Project

2006

Labor Supply of Older Americans: Effects of Tax Rates and Tax Treatment of Pension and Social Security Income

Increased labor supply may be one of several responses of the elderly to insufficient retirement income. If the Federal government considers policies to encourage labor supply among the elderly, they must understand how various features of the tax code encourage or...

Authors: Purvi Sevak, Lucie Schmidt,

Project

2006

Probabilistic Thinking and Early Social Security Claiming

For most people, waiting until 65 to claim Social Security is financially advantageous. Yet, the majority claim early, at age 62. Another important financial decision at retirement is whether or not to annuitize retirement wealth, such as would be accumulated in...

Authors: Robert J. Willis, Adeline Delavande,

Project

2006

Home Production by Dual Earner Couples and Consumption During Retirement

The life-cycle model is economists’ primary framework for analyzing Social Security reform. First, this project would expand the life-cycle model’s framework to incorporate home-production decisions of both males and females, thereby strengthening its realism,...

Authors: John Laitner, Christopher House, Dmitriy Stolyarov,

Project

2006

Designing Optimal Pension Payouts Using Life Annuities and Phased Withdrawals: A Portfolio Approach

This research project will evaluate the key risk and return trade-offs of alternative ways of handling the payout phase of a defined contribution or Social Security personal account. This project will compare these outcomes for a life annuity versus a phased...

Authors: Raimond H. Maurer,

Project

2006

Financial Risk, Retirement, Saving and Investment

How does the riskiness of returns to retirement saving affect retirement, saving, and the optimal portfolio mix? The proposed project will utilize a dynamic, stochastic, structural econometric model of retirement, saving, and optimal portfolio mix to analyze how risky...

Authors: Thomas L. Steinmeier, Alan Gustman,

Project

2006

The Effect of Abolishing the Earnings Test on Labor Market Behavior Before Age 65

This proposal takes a dynamic approach to analyze the effect of eliminating the earnings test on retirement expectations and labor supply of those younger than 65. Prior studies have only examined this question for 65-70 year olds, and in a static context. Using the...

Authors: Arthur van Soest, Pierre-Carl Michaud,

Project

2006

Pathways to Bad Retirement Outcomes

There is increasing interest among policy makers in measuring well-being in ways that go beyond purely economic indicators, also with special focus on older individuals who constitute an increasing fraction of the population. However there is little consensus on...

Authors: Susann Rohwedder,

Project

2006

Enhancing the Quality of Data on Income and Wealth

Data quality is an issue of longstanding concern to researchers interested in wealth accumulation. This proposal summarizes work done on some simple survey extensions—innovations that may significantly improve the quality of household economic data. An important...

Authors: F. Thomas Juster, Honggao Cao, Michael Perry, Daniel Hill,

Project

2006

How Changes in Social Security Affect Retirement Trends

Respondent data collected in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) suggest that the trend to earlier retirement is reasserting itself among younger HRS men, after having leveled off from its historic decline over the past 15 years. In contrast, data for men over 65...

Authors: Thomas L. Steinmeier, Alan Gustman,

Project Year: 2006

The Role of Spousal Health Insurance Provision in Retirement Decisions

Assessing the Risks and the Costs of the Risks Posed by Social Security’s Potential Insolvency

Evaluating Social Security Reforms using Probabilistic Population Forecasts in a Life-cycle Model of Social Insurance

Health Risk in Retirement and Retirement Wealth

Who Annuitizes and How Do System Rules Shape These Choices? The Case of Chile

Retirement Savings Portfolio Management

Rising Economic Risk and the Labor Supply of Older Workers

The Dynamics of Work-Related Health and Labor Market Status: An International Comparison

Using New Measures of Fatness to Improve Estimates of Early Entry onto the OASI Rolls

Trading Behavior in Personal Accounts: Lessons from 401(k) Pension Participants

Personal Social Security Accounts: Quantifying the Macro and Efficiency Effects II

Labor Supply of Older Americans: Effects of Tax Rates and Tax Treatment of Pension and Social Security Income

Probabilistic Thinking and Early Social Security Claiming

Home Production by Dual Earner Couples and Consumption During Retirement

Designing Optimal Pension Payouts Using Life Annuities and Phased Withdrawals: A Portfolio Approach

Financial Risk, Retirement, Saving and Investment

The Effect of Abolishing the Earnings Test on Labor Market Behavior Before Age 65

Pathways to Bad Retirement Outcomes

Enhancing the Quality of Data on Income and Wealth

How Changes in Social Security Affect Retirement Trends

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