2013
Housing in Retirement Across Countries
The \retirement saving puzzle" in the literature is the phenomenon that many households in the U.S. have significant wealth late in life, contrary to the predictions of a simple life-cycle model. In this project, we examine cross-country differences in saving…
The Financial Crisis and Saving in Personal Retirement Accounts
Personal saving accounts (PRAs), especially 401(k) plans have become an increasingly important mode of retirement saving. Our goal is to provide new evidence on the effect of the recent financial crisis, and the associated decline in employment, on PRA saving.…
Why Do SSI and SNAP Enrollments Rise in Good Economic Times and in Bad?
The number of participants in the Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) skyrocketed during the Great Recession. But more surprising is that caseloads for both programs increased during the preceding expansion and during the…
Characteristics and Employment of Applicants for Social Security Disability Insurance over the Business Cycle
In this paper, we use administrative records of the universe of all people who apply for DI between 1991 and 2008 to examine how their composition changes during boom and busts. We find that almost all of the increase in…
Happy Together or Home Alone: A Structural Model of the Role of Health Insurance in Joint Retirement
As the baby-boom generation approaches retirement age, most families facing retirement today are dual-worker couples who coordinate retirement choices. The availability of retiree health insurance is a crucial factor that can influence the timing of couples’ retirement decisions. By reducing…
Post-War Trends in Labor Income in the Social Security Earnings Public-Use File
The release of the Social Security Administration’s Earnings Public-Use File (EPUF) offers an unparalleled source of information for analyzing trends in lifetime earnings patterns. The file contains summary earnings information on individual-level Social-Security-covered earnings before 1951 as well as individual-year…
Does Retirement Induced through Social Security Pension Eligibility Influence Subjective Well-being? A Cross-Country Comparison
In this paper, we examine the effect of retirement on subjective well-being within 12 countries, using panel data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)3. By comparing countries…