Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we examine behavioral responses to a new generation of retirement policies that on average are actuarially neutral. Although many conventional models predict that actuarially neutral policies will not affect retirement behavior, our model allows...

The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security suggests three plans for reforming Social Security. These plans divert various amounts of the payroll tax to a personal account if the worker chooses to participate in the account. In return, Social Security benefits are offset using...

This paper investigates individual responses to a simple scheme to privatize social security. The analysis explores the sensitivity of outcomes to how individuals project life expectancy, how they value spouse and survivor benefits, and to expected future reductions in social security benefits....

This paper studies cost of living adjustments in pensions from the perspective of labor economics. Evidence from longitudinal data on pension and annuity incomes of retirees suggests that pension COLAs are less important in the 1980s than in the 1970s, but that through 1987 they continued to...

A model of the firm and its pension plan is used to simulate the first round effects of pension policies. Pension policies create an imbalance in the pension fund which affects the level of pension contributions and ultimately wages. Changes in the differential between compensation and...

A structural life-cycle retirement model with an improved specification over previous models is used to analyze and compare the long-run labor supply effects of the rules for Social Security in place in 1972,1977 and 1983, and for an actuarially fair system. The effects of separate provisions...

A model of the firm and its pension plan is used to simulate the first round effects of pension policies. Pension policies create an imbalance in the pension fund which affects the level of pension contributions and ultimately wages. Changes in the differential between compensation and...

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...

The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security suggests three plans for reforming Social Security. These plans divert various amounts of the payroll tax to a personal account if the worker chooses to participate in the account. In return, Social Security benefits are offset using...

A structural dynamic model of retirement and saving is used to simulate the retirement effects of proposals made by the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. Provisions reducing the growth in real benefits and increasing actuarial incentives to work reduce retirements. They more...