The extent of demographic changes in Europe is much more drastic than in the United States. This paper studies the effects of population aging on the interactions between economic growth and living standards in Europe with labor market and pension reform, behavioral adaptations, and...

The aging of the US population undoubtedly will be associated with macroeconomic changes. In particular, some combination of lower consumption growth and increased labor input will ultimately be required. But, the timing of these changes can have important effects on variables like the rate of...

Mortality gradients by education and income have been rising in the United States and elsewhere. However, their impact on Social Security progressivity has received relatively little attention, and the impact on Medicare has received effectively none. This paper uses the Future Elderly Model to...

The US population will age rapidly for several decades and then more slowly, with less aging than most rich nations. Health of the elderly has greatly improved, but disability stagnated after 2000. Retirement age reversed its decline in the mid-1990s and health status leaves ample room for...

Using a local randomized experiment that arises from a sharp discontinuity in Disability Insurance (DI) policy in Norway, we provide transparent and credible identification of how financial incentives induce DI recipients to return to work. We find that many DI recipients have considerable...

Immigrants residing among many coethnics are especially likely to receive SSI for a disability when they belong to high SSI take-up immigrant groups. After showing that this relationship cannot be fully explained by differences in health, we consider the likely sources of these network effects...

We present the first causal estimates of the effect of Social Security Disability Insurance benefit receipt on labor supply using all program applicants. We use administrative data to match applications to disability examiners and exploit variation in examiners' allowance rates as an instrument...

Elderly individuals exhibit wide disparities in their sources of income. For those in the bottom half of the income distribution, Social Security is the most important source of support; program changes would directly affect their well-being. Income from private pensions, assets, and earnings...