2003 – Publication Years

Expectation Formation of Older Married Couples and the Rational Expectations Hypothesis

June 14, 2018
Behavioral economics, Family dynamics, Retirement

This paper tests the Rational Expectations (RE) hypothesis regarding retirement expectations of married older American couples, controlling for sample selection and reporting biases. In prior research we found that individual retirement expectation formation was consistent with the Rational Expectation hypothesis,…

Medicare Gaps and Widow Poverty

June 14, 2018
Financial well-being, Health, Medicare

Several categories of medical expenditures are not covered by Medicare, including prescription drugs, most nursing home stays, and extended hospital visits. Out-of-pocket costs for these items can be substantial, and what’s more, they are likely to be concentrated at the…

Early Retirement Windows

June 14, 2018
Health and Retirement Study, Older workers, Retirement

What happens to the employment status and earnings of workers who accept earlyretirement windows? Using data from the first six waves of HRS (1992-2002) I find that those who accepted window offers experience a sharp decline in employment - most…

Betting on Death and Capital Markets in Retirement: A Shortfall Risk Analysis of Life Annuities versus Phased Withdrawal Plans

June 14, 2018
Retirement

How might retirees consider deploying the retirement assets accumulated in a defined contribution pension plan? One possibility would be to purchase an immediate annuity. Another approach, called the “phased withdrawal” strategy in the literature, would have the retiree invest his…

The Impact of Financial Education on Savings and Asset Allocation

June 14, 2018
Financial well-being, Health and Retirement Study

The responsibility to save and contribute to a pension is increasingly left to the individual worker. Understanding how households save and prepare for retirement is of paramount importance. There is concern in the U.S. that many families have little or…

Defined Benefit Pension Plan Liabilities and International Asset Allocation

June 14, 2018
pensions

Despite the integration of international capital markets and the relaxation of capital controls, U.S. defined benefit pension plans do not sufficiently diversify their assets across international holdings. In this paper, we explore whether incorporating liabilities in the asset allocation decision…

Elderly Households and Housing Wealth: Do They Use it or Lose It?

June 14, 2018
Uncategorized

The Demand for Guarantees in Social Security Personal Retirement Accounts

June 14, 2018
Retirement, retirement savings, Social Security

This project evaluates how workers might invest their Personal Retirement Account (PRA) funds between safe and risky assets, depending on whether they are offered a rate of return guarantee on the risky asset. We focus on how asset allocation decisions…

How Important Are Wages to the Elderly? Evidence from the New Beneficiary Data System and the Social Security Earnings Test

June 14, 2018
Older workers, Social Security

More than 40 percent of Social Security beneficiaries continue to work after age 65. This research investigates the extent to which these individuals substitute labor across periods in response to anticipated wage changes induced by the Social Security earnings test.…

The Impact of Poor Health Behaviors on Workforce Disability

June 14, 2018
Disability, Health, Labor force participation

The effects of poor health habits on mortality have been studied extensively. However, few studies have examined the impact of these health behaviors on workforce disability. In the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative cohort of 6044 Americans who…