Canada and the United States are typically regarded as 'laggards' in welfare state development. They are regularly classified together as 'liberal' welfare states, with relatively lower levels of welfare state fiscal effort and coverage. There is some truth to this portrait overall, but in...

The authors define and estimate measures of economic preparation for retirement based on a complete inventory of economic resources while taking into account the risk of living to advanced old age and the risk of high out-of-pocket spending for health care services. They ask whether, in a sample...

This paper describes how differences in health status at retirement can influence the decision to purchase a life annuity. We extend previous research on annuitization decisions by incorporating the effect of health differentials via differences in survival throughout the latter portion of life....

These are interesting times in the pension world now that there are two diametrically opposed proposals for change before Congress. The first is the Pension Preservation and Savings Expansion Act of 2003 recently introduced by Representatives Portman and Cardin. This bill embodies the...

The adequacy of retirement income – from Social Security benefits and other sources – is substantially reduced by Medicare's high out-of-pocket (OOP) costs. This project uses the 2002-2014 Health and Retirement Study to calculate post-OOP benefit ratios, defined as the share of either Social...

Health care spending has increased faster than incomes for decades, but the pace slowed materially after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Using data from various waves of the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey we examine what has happened to out-of-pocket health care spending by...

After retirement, the primary sources of uncertainty with respect to an individual's economic status are longevity, investment outcomes and out-of-pocket spending on health care. In previous work, we estimated economic preparation for retirement, taking into account the risk of living to an...

We define and estimate measures of economic preparation for retirement based on a complete inventory of economic resources while taking into account the risk of living to advanced old age and the risk of high out-of-pocket spending for health care services. We ask whether, in a sample of 66-69...

This paper assesses the effects of personality traits on economic preparation for retirement, wealth accumulation, and consumption, among persons 66 to 69 years of age. Among the five chief personality traits of neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, we focus...