Projects

Relatively little research has been done on trading patterns of participants in 401(k) plans, despite their importance in the US retirement arena. This paper initiates an investigation into a new database covering in 1,530 defined contribution (401(k) retirement plans covering…

Most research in the area of retirement has focused on an individual’s decision to retire or continue working. Debate in the field tends to focus on what model best fits retirement decision behavior. What is often neglected is the fact…

This project will use data from the Health and Retirement Study to investigate how the Social Security retirement earnings test affects retirement behavior, benefit claiming and retirement incomes; the effects of abolishing the earnings test between early entitlement and full…

It is widely believed that creating personal accounts as a partial replacement to Social Security benefits will simply involve a reallocation of resources between generations with no gains in economic efficiency. This paper demonstrates that this traditional wisdom only holds…

We propose to evaluate whether an insurer could provide a two-part annuity offering regular income benefits as long as the purchaser is healthy, and a higher disability benefit in the event of poor health. Since health is a multidimensional concept,…

According to the most recent Social Security Trustees’ Report, the Social Security system currently faces a $10 trillion present value fiscal imbalance. In other words, $10 trillion are needed immediately in order to place the Social Security system on a…

The 1972 Social Security benefit increase provides an opportunity to examine the consumption response to a large, permanent income increase. While prior research examined the labor supply response, the impact on consumption has generally been ignored. Using the 1972-73 Consumer…

We will use a dynamic programming model estimated with data from the Health and Retirement Study to simulate the behavioral effects of various reforms to the OASDI and Medicare programs. Among the reforms we will simulate are changes in the…

Postponing retirement becomes an increasingly important channel to sustain incomes and maintain social security financial solvency, given population aging. Traditional defined benefit systems encourage early retirement. In contrast, the tight link between contributions and benefits in defined contribution systems likely…

In the U.S. during the 1980s and 1990s, the number of adults receiving income from Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) rose by 60 percent and the percentage of adults who were clinically obese doubled. This project will test whether these…