The authors provide evidence that households run down their assets after retirement by tracking a group of elderly households over the 1996–2004 period. They find that assets decline for these households approaching the end of the life cycle. Had there not been a run-up in asset prices due in...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the effect of employer-provided health insurance and Medicare in determining retirement behavior. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we estimate the first dynamic programming model of retirement that accounts for both saving and...

The saving patterns of retired US households pose a challenge to the basic life-cycle model of saving. The observed patterns of out-of-pocket medical expenses, which rise quickly with age and income during retirement, and heterogeneous life span risk can explain a significant portion of US...

The degree to which retirement decisions are driven by health is a key concern for both academics and policymakers. In this paper we survey the economic literature on the health-retirement link in developed countries. We describe the mechanisms through which health affects labor supply and...

The degree to which retirement decisions are driven by health is a key concern for both academics and policy makers. In this review, we survey the economic literature on the health–retirement link in developed countries. We describe the mechanisms through which health affects labor supply and...