This paper uses asset and labor market data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate how the recent "Great Recession" has affected the wealth and retirement of those in the population who were just approaching retirement age at the beginning of the recession, a potentially...

Our findings suggest that although the consequences of the decline in the stock market are serious for those approaching their retirement, the average person approaching retirement age is not likely to suffer a life changing financial loss from the stock market downturn of 2008-2009. Similarly,...

This paper examines retirement and related behavioral responses to policies that on average are actuarially neutral. Many conventional models predict that actuarially neutral policies will not affect retirement behavior. In contrast, our model allows those with high time preference rates to find...

This paper considers the prospects for adding choice of portfolio composition to a life cycle model of retirement and saving, while preserving the ability of the model to continue to explain the course of saving and retirement. If eventually successful, such a modification might be used to...

This paper is based on a structural model of retirement and saving, estimated with data for a sample of married men in the Health and Retirement Study. It explains the relation of specific features of Social Security - the benefit amount, the early entitlement age, the normal retirement age,...

For married men, we find the conventional view of retirement trends - that the long term trend to early retirement has been reversed - is partially contradicted by recent data. Specifically, descriptive data collected from both the Census and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) suggest that...

This paper is based on a structural model of retirement and saving, estimated with data for a sample of married men in the Health and Retirement Study. The model simulates how various features of a system of personal Social Security accounts jointly affects retirement, saving, the choice of...

This paper introduces the age at which Social Security benefits are claimed as an additional outcome in a structural model of retirement and wealth. The model is then used to simulate the effects of abolishing the remainder of the Social Security earnings test, between age 62 and the full...

In this paper we use data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine differences in retirement behavior, wealth, Social Security and pension benefits by race and gender. The differences observed among groups are sometimes substantial. We then estimate models jointly explaining retirement...

This project uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine, in the context of a structural retirement model, the effects on retirement of non-wage aspects of employment emanating from firm side factors. Factors examined include minimum hours constraints, layoffs, physical and mental...