TY - JOUR T1 - What Explains Changes in Retirement Plans during the Great Recession? JF - The American Economic Review Y1 - 2011 A1 - Gopi Shah Goda A1 - John B. Shoven A1 - Sita Nataraj Slavov KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Housing KW - Methodology KW - Public Policy KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - We examine changes in subjective probabilities regarding retirement between the 2006 and 2008 waves of the Health and Retirement Study. Using a first-difference approach to eliminate individual heterogeneity, we find that the steep drop in asset prices in 2008 increased the reported probability of working at age 62 during the Great Recession. Increasing unemployment at least partly attenuated this effect, but subjective probabilities of working did not respond to changes in housing markets. Older workers' probabilities of working were more sensitive to fluctuations in the stock market, but less responsive to changes in labor market conditions. PB - 101 VL - 101 IS - 3 U4 - Great Recession/Retirement plans/Economic theory/labor Force Participation/housing markets ER -