Improved understanding of retirement behavior is a key to better understanding of many important economic problems. In as close as we can come to a general "social experiment," real Social Security benefits were increased substantially for the period we study the retirement patterns of a cohort...

Our purpose in the present study is to analyze a new and rich body of data on the elderly to study the supply side of the effect of social security on the early retirement decision. Toward this end, section 2 presents a brief description of some previous studies of retirement behavior. While...

This paper presents new evidence on cost-of-living indices and annual inflation rates for the elderly population as well as the general population. It employs a now fairly widely accepted adjustment for the inappropriate treatment of housing in the Consumer Price Index. We disaggregate by...

No abstract.

In the short run, the Bush tax cuts were one of the largest and best-timed uses of fiscal policy in history, helping to prevent a much worse downturn (but it would have been better still if the tax rate cuts had been immediate and real spending controls enacted simultaneously to take effect well...

All candidates and Presidents make some statements that make economists cringe, often put into speeches by political advisors unconstrained by economic literacy. From its description of the state of the economy to its policy prescriptions, much of the Kerry-Edwards campaign's pronouncements are...

The critics of President Bush's Social Security reform proposal claim there will be massive cuts in "guaranteed" benefits of 40% or more. That is absurd. Nobody's benefits need to be cut and nobody's taxes need to be raised. Current tax rates, given projected economic growth, are sufficient to...