Reports that the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted sometime in the early part of the next century reinforce the need to make retirement policy in the United States more accommodating for those who want to work. While there is general agreement that disincentives to work at older ages...

This paper focuses on the movement of data-based social policy analysis from a single-country cross-section frame to a multi-country panel frame. It provides examples of policy insights this movement to panel data has permitted, both with respect to economic well-being and behavior--using data...

This paper uses kernel density estimation to show how after-tax household size-adjusted income changed between the peak years of the 1990s business cycle in Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States. Great Britain and the United States experienced substantial growth in average income,...

This paper develops dynamic structural models - an option value model and a dynamic programming model - of the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application timing decision. We estimate the time to application from the point at which a health condition first begins to affect the kind...

In this paper we provide a context for evaluating the goals and effectiveness of current disability policy. We review the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs and examine trends in disability benefit receipt and employment among working-age people with...

This paper compares the economic well-being of men with disabilities in the United States and Germany. The results indicate that while the prevalence of disability is similar, the social institutions developed in the two countries result in quite different patterns of employment, transfer...