Studies using data from the early 1990s suggested that while the progressive Social Security benefit formula succeeded in redistributing benefits from individuals with high earnings to individuals with low earnings, it was much less successful in redistributing benefits from households with high...

This paper constructs and estimates a dynamic model of the evolution of health for those over the age of 50 and then embeds that model of health dynamics in a structural, econometric model of retirement and saving. The health model traces the effects of smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption,...

This paper examines the distributional implications of introducing additional means testing of Social Security benefits where proceeds are used to help balance Social Security's finances. Benefits of the top quarter of households ranked according to the relevant measure of means are reduced...

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...

A structural retirement model estimated with data from the Health and Retirement Study is used to simulate the effects of policies firms might adopt to improve employment conditions for older workers and thereby encourage delayed retirement. Firm policies that effectively abolished minimum hours...

This paper uses earnings histories obtained from the Social Security Administration and linked to the survey responses for participants in the Health and Retirement Study to investigate redistribution under the current social security benefit formula. We find that as advertised, at the level of...

This paper investigates the effect of the current recession on the near-retirement age population. Data from the Health and Retirement Study suggest that those approaching retirement age (early boomers ages 53 to 58 in 2006) have only 15.2 percent of their wealth in stocks, held directly or in...

This paper advances the specification and estimation of models of retirement and saving in two earner families. The complications introduced by the interaction of retirement decisions by husbands and wives have led researchers to adopt a number of simplifications to increase the feasibility of...

This paper uses asset and labor market data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate how the recent "Great Recession" has affected the wealth and retirement of those in the population who were just approaching retirement age at the beginning of the recession, a potentially...

This paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to explore the mechanism that underlies the robust relation found in the literature between cognitive ability, and in particular numeracy, and wealth, income constant. We have a number of findings. First, the more valuable the pension,...