TY - CHAP T1 - The Economic Security of Latino Baby Boomers: Implications for Future Retirees and for Healthcare Funding in the U.S. T2 - Challenges of Latino Aging in the Americas Y1 - 2015 A1 - Zachary Gassoumis A1 - Kathleen H. Wilber A1 - Torres-Gil, Fernando M. ED - William A. Vega ED - Kyriakos S Markides ED - Jacqueline L. Angel ED - Torres-Gil, Fernando M. KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Healthcare KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Women and Minorities JF - Challenges of Latino Aging in the Americas PB - Springer CY - New York U4 - health Care Costs/Latinos/economic security/Public Policy/economic disparity JO - The Economic Security of Latino Baby Boomers: Implications for Future Retirees and for Healthcare Funding in the U.S. ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The Effect of Retirement Date Expectations on Pre-retirement Wealth Accumulation: The Role of Gender and Bargaining Power in Married US Households JF - Journal of Family and Economic Issues Y1 - 2015 A1 - Romm, A. T. KW - Adult children KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Expectations KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction KW - Women and Minorities AB - This paper used seven waves of data from the US Health and Retirement Study to investigate the impact of expectations regarding the timing of retirement on pre-retirement wealth accumulation of married households. More specifically, the effect of married individuals' subjective beliefs of working full time after age 62 on household wealth was analyzed. Individuals' perceptions of the usual retirement age on the job was used as an instrument for their subjective beliefs of working full time after age 62. On a whole, the point estimates suggested that the responsiveness of married mens' saving behavior to retirement dates expectations was larger than that of married women. In particular, wealth of married households where men had the bargaining power in terms of being sole earners, exhibited the largest decrease in response to increases in subjective probabilities of working past age 62. PB - 36 VL - 36 IS - 4 U4 - Retirement date/Subjective beliefs/Wealth/expectations/retirement planning/household wealth/labor Force Participation/Personality and Social Psychology/Economics of Gender/Non-labor Discrimination/Public Policy/Women/family structure/Personal finance ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Elderly Poverty in the United States in the 21st Century: Exploring the Role of Assets in the Supplemental Poverty Measure Y1 - 2015 A1 - Wimer, Christopher A1 - Manfield, Lucas KW - Income KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - Official estimates of elderly poverty do not take into account either the medical needs of the elderly, which can be quite extensive, or the assets at their disposal, which may also be extensive. The new Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) explicitly takes into account medical needs but has been criticized for not concomitantly taking into account asset portfolios. In this paper we consider both jointly, using an approach adapted from a recent National Academy of Sciences report recommending methods for measuring poverty and medical risk while taking account of assets. We use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). PB - Boston College UR - http://crr.bc.edu/working-papers/elderly-poverty-in-the-united-states-in-the-21st-century-exploring-the-role-of-assets-in-the-supplemental-poverty-measure/ U4 - Poverty/medical needs/assets/medical risk ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in Household Savings and Portfolio Choice Y1 - 2015 A1 - Dal Borgo, Mariela KW - Net Worth and Asset KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Risk Taking KW - Social Security KW - Women and Minorities AB - The first part of this thesis presents a decomposition of household savings. One of the explanations for the wealth gap is that households with the same income level and demographic characteristics present differences in saving rates. This issue has been studied for African American versus Whites, but has not been directly addressed for Hispanics. Using pre-retirement data from the Health and Retirement Study, I compute saving rates as the ratio of wealth change to income over the years 1992-1998 and 1998-2004. In a regression framework I find that Mexican Americans, but not other Hispanics, have lower saving rates than Whites, even after controlling for income and socio-demographic factors. The inclusion of Social Security (S.S.) and pension wealth widens the gap further, which reflects the lack of pensions' coverage among Mexican Americans. In contrast, the difference between African Americans and Whites is only significant when retirement assets are not added to total wealth, consistent with the equalizing effect of S.S.. Then I conduct a regression decomposition for the mean gap in saving rates and find that: i) the component of the Mexican American-White differential not explained by observable characteristics becomes significant when S.S. and pensions are included; ii) with or without retirement assets the unexplained racial gap disappears; and iii) income and education are the main predictors of the savings gaps. The second and third parts investigate the effect of bankruptcy protection on households' portfolio choice. The debtor protection provided by the U.S. personal bankruptcy law reduces exposure to uninsurable risks: it allows defaulters to discharge unsecured debt and to protect a certain amount of home equity. A reduction in background risk - for example, resulting from labor or entrepreneurial income - can affect the demand for risky financial assets. Thus, the bankruptcy protection can affect ex ante households' willingness to tilt the financial portfolio towards those assets. On the one hand the implicit consumption insurance may lead to higher risk-taking by increasing the consumption floor if there is a negative wealth shock ("risk-taking channel"). On the other hand, more generous bankruptcy provisions will lead to a reduction in the demand for stock via: i) a higher probability of bankruptcy, since stocks are lost in bankruptcy because they are not protected ("protection channel"); or ii) worse credit market conditions -less access to credit at a higher price-, since higher bankruptcy protection implies a reduction of the collateral ("credit market channel"). In the context of a portfolio choice model, in the second chapter I illustrate how the bankruptcy protection can affect risk-taking through the "risk-taking channel" and the "protection channel". In the third part, I examine empirically the relationship between bankruptcy protection and stock market participation by exploiting the variation in that protection across states and over time. I find that doubling the amount of home equity that can be protected reduces stock ownership by 2 p.p. at intermediate protection levels ($22,000 to $90,000). This decline is restricted to high-asset and high-income households, which are more likely to participate in the stock market. Since poor rather than rich households are affected by worse credit market conditions when bankruptcy becomes more generous, the "credit market channel" is not a plausible mechanism. I do not find any effect of higher protection on the share of stocks in liquid assets, which suggests that the bankruptcy protection does not affect households' risk appetite. My findings are consistent with unprotected rather than risky assets becoming less attractive as the level of protection increases, as predicted by the "protection channel". PB - University of Warwick CY - Coventry, UK VL - Ph. D. U4 - Portfolio Choice JO - Essays in Household Savings and Portfolio Choice ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in industrial organization Y1 - 2015 A1 - Bayot, Denrick Go KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Healthcare KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other KW - Risk Taking AB - Chapter 1 considers markets where there are gains to committing to a contract but the contract is not enforceable. Contracts in these markets typically contain some feature that locks the noncommittal agent, such as a penalty for defaulting on a contract. I argue that these lock-in mechanisms might lead to inefficient contract provisions when there is some uncertainty in the agent's valuation of the contract, and such uncertainty cannot be contracted. I then apply this argument when examining the extent to which life insurance contracts drafted today exhibit this form of ex-post inefficiency. There are a few reasons why one would suspect the existence of excessive insurance provisions in the life insurance industry. First, premiums in life insurance contracts are heavily front-loaded to subsidize subsequent premiums. The front-loading of premiums in these contracts and reduction of future premiums, as nicely pointed out by Hendel and Lizzeri (2003), allows firms to insure against rising premiums (insurance against reclassification risk) by reducing the policyholder's incentive to drop a contract and shop for a possibly less expensive policy. Indeed, I find that the level at which these contracts are front-loaded eliminates any future incentive for policyholders to repurchase a contract. I also provide evidence that a policyholder's preference for insuring against mortality risks changes stochastically over time. Despite heavy premium front-loading, almost 40% of policyholders allow their insurance to lapse within the first 10 years. Considering that premiums are lower than the cost of supplying mortality risk insurance and that preferences for such insurance changes over time, one would suspect excessive ex-post life insurance provisions. The core analysis of Chapter 1 discusses why the market for term life insurance contracts fail to fully protect policyholders from reclassification risk. Hendel and Lizzeri (2003) argue that such failure arises from the policyholder's limited-commitment and credit constraints. In particular, they surmise that a policyholder's credit constraint prevents the level of front-loading necessary to prevent all healthy policyholders from eventually walking out. The anticipated default of healthy policyholders then leads to a partial break-down in reclassification risk insurance. I investigate this premise and find that limited commitment alone fails to explain the break-down in full reclassification risk insurance observed in the life-insurance industry. I find that efforts to mitigate ex-post inefficient insurance provisions led to the breakdown of full reclassification risk insurance in this market. Chapter 2 is a joint work with Juliette Caminade and explains why prices of champagne fall during the holiday season. In this chapter, we document countercyclical prices in the sparkling wine market during the holiday season. While quantity demand doubles, prices uniformly decrease and decreases by 16% on average. We examine the role of changes in aggregate elasticity during high demand periods. Using Nielsen retail data, we find that price elasticity for sparkling wine increases by 50% during the holidays. We then use household-level data to document how the change in demand is driven by the entry of a large share of new consumers. These consumers are responsible for a quarter of sales during the holidays and are more price elastic. For instance, they spend less on other alcoholic beverages, and they are more likely to use coupons for their purchases or buy generic products. These suggestive facts are confirmed by the results of our household level demand estimation, where we find that changes to aggregate elasticity is driven by the entry of a more elastic segment. PB - The University of Chicago CY - Chicago VL - 3712084 UR - http://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1707673975?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/Dissertations+%26+Theses+%40+CIC+Institutions&rft_val_fmt=info:of N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest Dissertations Publishing 2015 Last updated - 2015-09-08 First page - n/a U4 - 0501:Economics JO - Essays in industrial organization ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on Health Economics Y1 - 2015 A1 - Ippolito, Benedic N. KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Healthcare KW - Income KW - Insurance KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - The first chapter, co-authored with Michael Batty, investigates how financial constraints influence hospital care. Specifically we study the impacts of recently enacted state "Fair Pricing" laws, which explicitly limit how much hospitals can collect from uninsured patients. Using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, we find that the introduction of a fair pricing law leads to reductions in the amount of care delivered to uninsured patients, but find no evidence of deterioration of short-term quality of care. Overall, our results provide strong evidence that hospitals actively alter their behavior in response to financial incentives, and are consistent with the laws promoting a shift towards more efficient care delivery. In the second chapter I investigate how retirement incentives embedded in health insurance contracts influence labor market decisions of older workers. Employers typically offer one of two types of health plans: tied contracts (coverage ends at retirement) or retiree contracts (coverage continues in retirement). In comparison to a retiree plan, a tied contract provides an obvious incentive to delay retirement, but which workers stay? Particularly, what are the health characteristics of workers who respond to the incentives of the tied contract? I show that, contrary to suggestions in the literature, tied contracts produce advantageous selection. Additionally, I investigate the fact that tied contracts are consistently found to delay retirement even after age 65 - at which point workers are eligible for Medicare coverage. I show that this "excess retention" effect is entirely driven by workers with younger spouses who do not have their own insurance. The final chapter is joint work with Michael Batty and Joseph Levy, and examines how physician behavior responds to the introduction of a "panel-based" compensation structure - where a large portion of compensation is based on the number of patients a provider is responsible for, rather than the amount of work actually done. Taking advantage of a natural experiment at a large academic health system, we show that physician behavior is surprisingly unresponsive to changes in incentives - particularly for those who experienced a clear reduction in production incentives. PB - The University of Wisconsin - Madison CY - Madison, WI VL - 3714612 UR - http://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1700219263?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/Dissertations+%26+Theses+%40+CIC+Institutions&rft_val_fmt=info:of N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2015 Last updated - 2015-08-26 First page - n/a U4 - 0769:Health care management JO - Essays on Health Economics ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on Health Insurance and Annuities Y1 - 2015 A1 - Shepard, Mark KW - Medicare/Medicaid/Health Insurance KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction KW - Social Security AB - Insurance creates an important source of economic well-being by providing for beneficiaries in times of need. But because a variety of forces may inhibit the proper functioning of insurance markets, governments are deeply involved through regulation, subsidies, and direct provision of insurance. This dissertation studies insurance demand, supply, and the role of policy in two types of markets of direct interest to policymakers: health insurance and annuities. I highlight the importance of both traditional market failures (adverse selection and moral hazard) and less standard factors like limited competition (market power) and puzzlingly low insurance demand to influence insurance market outcomes. In the first chapter, I study how health insurers compete in individual insurance markets like those established in the Affordable Care Act. I focus on the role of an increasingly important benefit: plans' networks of covered medical providers. Using data from Massachusetts' pioneer insurance exchange, I show evidence of substantial adverse selection against plans covering the most expensive and prestigious academic hospitals. Individuals loyal to the prestigious hospitals both select plans covering them and are more likely to use these hospitals' high-price care. Standard risk adjustment does not capture their higher costs driven by preferences for using high-price providers. To study the welfare implications of network-based selection, I estimate a structural model of hospital and insurance markets and use the model to simulate insurer competition on premiums and hospital coverage in an insurance exchange. I find that with fixed hospital prices, adverse selection leads all plans to exclude the prestigious hospitals. Modified risk adjustment or subsidies can preserve coverage, benefitting those who value the hospitals most but raising costs enough to offset these gains. I conclude that adverse selection encourages plans to limit networks and star academic hospitals to lower prices, with the welfare implications depending on whether those high prices fund socially valuable services. Chapter 2 also studies health insurance exchanges and the competitive effect of a policy design choice: how the level of subsidies is determined. In the Affordable Care Act exchanges and other programs, subsidies depend on prices set by insurers – as prices rise, so do subsidies. I show that these "price-linked" subsidies incentivize higher prices, with a magnitude that depends on how much insurance demand rises when the price of uninsurance (the mandate penalty) increases. To estimate this effect, I use two natural experiments in the Massachusetts subsidized insurance exchange. In both cases, I find that a $1 increase in the relative monthly mandate penalty increases plan demand by about 1%. Using this estimate, my model implies a sizable distortion of $48 per month (about 12%). This distortion has implications for the tradeoffs between price-linked and exogenous subsidies in many public insurance programs. I discuss an alternate policy that would eliminate the distortion while maintaining many of the benefits of price-linked subsidies. Chapter 3 studies demand for annuities – insurance products that protect retirees against outliving their assets. Standard life cycle theory predicts that individuals facing uncertain mortality will annuitize all or most of their retirement wealth. Researchers seeking to explain why retirees rarely purchase annuities have focused on imperfections in commercial annuities – including actuarially unfair pricing, lack of bequest protection, and illiquidity in the case of risky events like medical shocks. I study the annuity choice implicit in the timing of Social Security claiming and show that none of these can explain why most retirees claim benefits as early as possible, effectively choosing the minimum annuity. Most early claimers in the Health and Retirement Study had sufficient liquidity to delay Social Security longer than they actually did and could have increased lifetime consumption by delaying. Because the marginal annuity obtained through delay is better than actuarially fair, standard bequest motives cannot explain the puzzle. Nor can the risk of out-of-pocket nursing home costs, since these are concentrated at older ages past the break-even point for delayed claiming. Social Security claiming patterns, therefore, add to the evidence that behavioral explanations may be needed to explain the annuity puzzle. PB - Harvard University CY - Cambridge, MA U4 - early claiming JO - Essays on Health Insurance and Annuities ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on the economics and econometrics of human capital Y1 - 2015 A1 - Mosso, Stefano KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other AB - This thesis is composed by three distinct chapters. They are related by their common theme: the economic analysis of the process of human capital formation. The first chapter distills and extends the recent research on the economics of human development and social mobility. It critically analyzes the literature on the role of early life conditions in shaping multiple life skills with emphasis on the importance of critical and sensitive investments periods in influencing skill development. It develops economic models that rationalize the empirical evidence on treatment effects of social programs and on family influence. It investigates the empirical support of recent claims, made by part of the literature, on the relevance of credit constraints in limiting skill development. It shows how credit constraints are not a major force explaining differences in the amount of parental and self-investments in skills and how untargeted income transfer policies to poor families do not significantly boost child outcomes. The second chapter compares the performance of maximum likelihood and simulated methods of moments in estimating dynamic discrete choice models. It presents a structural model of education and shows how it can be used to estimate heterogeneous returns from schooling choices which account for their continuation values. Continuation values have a large impact on returns, but are ignored in the measures commonly used to assess the value of schooling choices. The estimates from the model are used to compute a synthetic dataset. This is used to assess the ability of maximum likelihood and simulated methods of moments to recover the model parameters. It finally proposes a Monte Carlo exercise to gain confidence on the performance of a simulated method of moments algorithm. The last chapter proposes a method to assess long run impacts on earnings of early interventions even in absence of long-term data collection on earnings histories for program participants. It combines the methodological approaches of the literature on program evaluation, data combination and forecasting to develop estimators of the average treatment effects. This exercise allows a more complete cost-benefit evaluation of social programs accounting for benefits over the whole life cycle. PB - The University of Chicago CY - Chicago VL - 3712723 UR - http://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1705542399?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/Dissertations+%26+Theses+%40+CIC+Institutions&rft_val_fmt=info:of N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest Dissertations Publishing 2015 Last updated - 2015-08-25 First page - n/a U4 - 0501:Economics JO - Essays on the economics and econometrics of human capital ER - TY - THES T1 - The economic security of an aging minority population: A profile of Latino baby boomers to inform future retirees Y1 - 2014 A1 - Zachary Gassoumis KW - Demographics KW - Income KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Women and Minorities AB - The United States is facing dramatic demographic changes due to the aging of the Baby Boom Generation and increasing diversity, including rapid growth of the Latino population. Questions have been raised regarding the economic security of the aging baby boomers' generational cohort once they retire, which are of particular relevance to minority and Latino members of the cohort. Latinos tend to have lower levels of financial security than their white, non-Latino counterparts, but there is little research that examines individuals who fall into the intersection of these two groups: the Latino baby boomers. Because Latino boomers are a largely hidden population, their economic status and prospects are difficult to estimate. The first empirical chapter (Chapter 2) looks at the characteristics of the Baby Boomer population living in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, broken down by Latino ethnicity and citizenship status. Drawing from several U.S. Census Bureau data sources, it revealed three key findings: 1) there were 80 million baby boomers in the U.S. in 2000--more than previously reported--of which 8.0 million (10%) were Latinos; 2) U.S.-born Latino boomers were more similar to non-Latino boomers in terms of demographic characteristics, whereas foreign-born citizens and non-citizens scored less well on key demographic indicators; and 3) compared to non-Latino baby boomers, U.S.-born Latino baby boomers had somewhat less favorable economic characteristics. The second empirical chapter identifies the magnitude of racial/ethnic structural disadvantage for income and wealth in the years preceding retirement for the Baby Boom Generation, then compares their structural disadvantage with that of members of the Silent Generation cohort when they were the same age. After adjusting for sociodemographic variables (age, gender, citizenship status, education, marital status, and labor force participation), the structural effects of race/ethnicity on income--using the American Community Survey--and wealth--using the Health and Retirement Study--were considerably reduced, confirming two of the chapter's four hypotheses; however, the expected reduction in structural effects from the Silent Generation to the Baby Boom Generation was seen for wealth but not for income, confirming only one of the remaining two hypotheses. This reduction of structural disparities in wealth from the Silent Generation to the Baby Boom Generation follows the expectation that these disparities would be reduced over time, which signals good news for the younger members of the Baby Boom Generation, Generation X, and future generational cohorts. But large gaps still exist between racial/ethnic groups, even after sociodemographic adjustment; future reduction in those structural inequalities can help decrease those gaps, an especially important consideration for low-income racial/ethnic minority groups. The third empirical chapter takes an initial step toward disaggregating by age the effect of naturalization on income growth. Using linear growth curve modeling on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation's 2004 panel, it attempts to replicate past findings across the entire lifespan, but fails to detect an effect of naturalization on income growth; only non-citizens had a significantly higher level of income growth during the study period than U.S.-born citizens. In subsetting the analysis for older and younger working-age groups, an effect of naturalization was not detected for either group, and the positive effect for non-citizens was seen only for the younger age group. The predictor variables on the whole had minimal relationships with slope in the model, with less than 1% of variance explained in each model. Although a stronger effect of the predictor variables, including an effect of naturalization, may have appeared were more years of data available, it was not detected over the 4-year study period. Two unexpected findings were: 1) individuals in the younger sample who had naturalized before the study had higher intercepts than U.S.-born citizens but no such difference emerged in the older sample; and 2) in a bivariate context, those who naturalized during the study represented a socioeconomic midpoint of sorts--on racial/ethnic composition, education, and income--naturalized prior to the study. In sum, these chapters shed light on the Baby Boom cohort's characteristics and dynamics in the period leading up to their retirement age. This dissertation provides insights into the characteristics, demographic history, and socioeconomic patterns of the upcoming cohort of retirees. Implications of these findings have the potential to inform and to modify practice and policy for the next cohort: Generation X. The findings underscore the importance of reducing disparities in education and, to a degree, citizenship as a mechanism for countering the persistent effects of structural inequality on income. These insights have implications for both theory and policy and lay a foundation for a wide range of future research, which is discussed in the final chapter. PB - University of Southern California CY - Los Angeles VL - 3628171 UR - http://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1560683648?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQuest+Dissertations+%26+Theses+A%26I&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt: N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2014 Last updated - 2014-09-17 First page - n/a U4 - ethnicity JO - The economic security of an aging minority population: A profile of Latino baby boomers to inform future retirees ER - TY - BOOK T1 - Economics of the Family Y1 - 2014 A1 - Browning, Martin A1 - Chiappori, Pierre-Andr A1 - Weiss, Yoram KW - Adult children KW - Demographics KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - The family is a complex decision unit in which partners with potentially different objectives make consumption, work, and fertility decisions. Couples marry and divorce partly based on their ability to coordinate these activities, which in turn depends on how well they are matched. This book provides a comprehensive, modern, and self-contained account of the research in the growing area of family economics. The first half of the book develops several alternative models of family decision making. Particular attention is paid to the collective model and its testable implications. The second half discusses household formation and dissolution and who marries whom. Matching models with and without frictions are analyzed and the important role of within-family transfers is explained. The implications for marriage, divorce, and fertility are discussed. The book is intended for graduate students in economics and for researchers in other fields interested in the economic approach to the family. PB - Cambridge University Press CY - New York UR - http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Cambridge-Surveys-Economic-Literature/dp/0521795397 U4 - families/Family economics/household finance/marriage/divorce/Fertility ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Effects of cost-related medication nonadherence on financial health and retirement decisions among adults in late midlife JF - Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research Y1 - 2014 A1 - Gail A Jensen A1 - Yong Li KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Healthcare KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - Objectives Suboptimal adherence to prescribed medications due to cost is known to adversely affect physical health. In this study, we examine whether cost-related nonadherence (CRN) also affects financial health , e.g. an individual's personal finances or the timing of their retirement. Methods We examine this issue for 2927 adults in late midlife with chronic medical conditions who participated in the Health and Retirement Study and who reported regularly taking medication(s) for their condition over the period 1994 to 2004. We hypothesize CRN may indirectly influence financial health by contributing to the occurrence of negative health shocks. We estimate two sets of models, one to quantify the effects of CRN on the occurrence of adverse health events, and another to quantify the effects of adverse health events on personal finances in 2004 and the timing of retirement. We then derive estimates of the indirect effects of CRN on financial health and on retirement decisions. Key findings Among adults in late midlife, CRN contributes significantly to reduced earnings and premature retirements. These effects happen because CRN raises the risk that serious health shocks occur over time, and such adverse events subsequently limit an individual's ability to continue working and accumulating wealth. Conclusions CRN can threaten more than just personal health. In late midlife, CRN can threaten an individual's ability to continue working and saving towards retirement. PB - 5 VL - 5 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jphs.12076 IS - 4 U4 - chronic care/financial health/cost-related nonadherence/long-run outcomes/medications/retirement planning/spillover effects/labor Force Participation ER - TY - THES T1 - End-of-life care planning and its implementation Y1 - 2014 A1 - Inoue, Megumi KW - End of life decisions KW - Expectations KW - Healthcare KW - Medicare/Medicaid/Health Insurance KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - End-of-life care planning is an opportunity for people to express how they want to spend the final stage of their lives by directing what type of medical treatment they wish or do not wish to receive. The completion of such planning is a way to exercise their autonomy, which is one of the fundamental ethical principles in medicine in the United States. Many older adults in the U.S., however, do not have such a plan or even discuss the topic with anyone. In order to understand the circumstances in which end-of-life planning is enacted, this study investigated two important research questions: (1) What are the sociodemographic and psychosocial factors that enhance or impede the completion of end-of-life planning? (2) How consistent is the content of a living will with the person's actual dying experience? These research questions were developed and examined as an application of expectancy theory, which explains the concepts of motivation and action. A series of logistic regression analyses were conducted. This study analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which is a nationally representative sample of Americans over the age of 50. The analytic subsample included those who died between 2000 and 2010 ( N = 6,668). The study found that persons who were older, who identified themselves as White, who had higher levels of income and education, and who were widowed or separated were more likely to be motivated to complete end-of-life planning. A higher level of sense of mastery was specifically relevant to documentation of living wills. On the other hand, a lower level of religiosity was specifically associated with having a durable power of attorney for health care. In addition, there was a clear connection between a request for palliative care and less troubling pain. Implications include conducting a community- or workplace-based public educational campaign, incorporating a culturally tailored approach for racial/ethnic minorities (e.g. faith-based interventions), using advance directives written in easy to understand language (e.g. Five Wishes), and funding Medicare provision for end-of-life care consultations between doctors and patients during annual physical exams. PB - Boston College CY - Boston VL - 3629596 UR - http://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1562496003?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQuest+Dissertations+%26+Theses+A%26I&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt: N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2014 Last updated - 2014-10-14 First page - n/a U4 - public policy JO - End-of-life care planning and its implementation ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in applied economics Y1 - 2014 A1 - Sacks, Daniel W. KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Healthcare KW - Income KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Social Security AB - Essay 1 studies physician agency problems, which arise whenever physicians fail to maximize their patients' preferences, given available information. These agency problems are well documented, but the magnitude of their welfare consequences for patients---the losses from suboptimal treatment choice induced by agency---are unclear. I infer patient drug preference from their compliance decisions. I begin by showing that initial prescriptions respond to physician financial incentives to control costs and to pharmaceutical detailing, but compliance does not, pointing to agency problems. I then develop and estimate a model of physician-patient interactions where physician write initial prescriptions, but patients choose whether to comply. Fully eliminating agency problems increases compliance by 6.5 percentage points, and raises patient welfare by 22\% of drug spending. Contracts that better align doctor and patient preferences can improve patient welfare, but attain only half the gains from eliminating agency completely. Although physician agency problems reduce patient welfare, eliminating them is thus likely difficult. Essay 2, co-authored with Alexander M. Gelber and Damon Jones, studies frictions in adjusting earnings to changes in the Social Security Annual Earnings Test (AET) using a panel of Social Security Administration microdata on one percent of the U.S. population from 1961 to 2006. Individuals continue to "bunch" at the convex kink the AET creates even when they are no longer subject to the AET, consistent with the existence of earnings adjustment frictions in the U.S. We develop a novel estimation framework and estimate in a baseline case that the earnings elasticity with respect to the implicit net-of-tax share is 0.23, and the fixed cost of adjustment is $152.08. Essay 3 studies the impact of health expenditure risk on annuitization. Theoretical research suggests that such risk can have an ambiguous influence on the annuitization decisions of the elderly. I provide empirical evidence on this linkage, by estimating the impact of supplemental Medicare insurance (Medigap) coverage on the annuity demand of older Americans. Medigap coverage has a strong impact on annuitization: the extensive margin elasticity is 0.39, the overall elasticity of private annuity income with respect to Medigap coverage is 0.56. These results are robust to controls for health, wealth, and preferences, as well as other robustness tests. They suggest that medical expenditure risk has a large impact on underannuitization. PB - University of Pennsylvania CY - Philadelphia, PA VL - 3622123 N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2014 Last updated - 2014-07-22 First page - n/a U4 - Annuitization JO - Essays in applied economics ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in Urban and Labor Economics Y1 - 2014 A1 - Ringo, Daniel KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Demographics KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Event History/Life Cycle KW - Housing KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This dissertation contributes to two literatures: Urban Economics and Labor Economics. In the first chapter I estimate the effect of home ownership on individual workers' unemployment and wage growth, as well as other labor market outcomes. Because of higher moving costs, home owners will be less willing than renters to relocate for work and could therefore face longer unemployment spells. To elaborate on this hypothesis, credited to Oswald (1996), I build a simple search model and obtain a set of labor market predictions to test. The current microeconomic literature has reached mixed results regarding home ownership's impact, with most studies concluding that home ownership reduces unemployment. I show that the instruments used are likely to be invalid because of, among other reasons, Tiebout (1956) type sorting into housing markets. I use an instrumental variable free of the endogeneity present in other work: the county level home ownership rate when and where the worker grew up. This IV affects workers' preferences for housing but not, conditional on my covariates, their labor market ability. My results indicate that home ownership is a significant hindrance to mobility, and homeowners suffer longer unemployment spells and slower wage growth because of it. In the second chapter I use a dynamic model of neighborhood choice to estimate household preferences over the demographic characteristics of a neighborhood. I focus on the racial mix, average income and housing price level of a neighborhood, and whether households prefer neighbors that are similar to themselves. Identification of these preferences is complicated by the social aspect of neighborhood amenities. A household's valuation of a particular choice (neighborhood) is a function of the choices other households in the market have made and will make in the future. I show that demographic characteristics of a neighborhood are therefore endogenous to neighborhood quality. Standard estimates of preferences over neighbors may be biased by the presence of such unobservable local amenities. I develop a framework to correct this problem based on a careful delineation of the information households could have access to before and after they make their decisions. The model I build has the advantage over the literature of being able to produce self-consistent predictions about demographic changes. I deal with the low frequency of observations in my data set, the decennial census, by simulating local housing markets between data collection periods. After controlling for type-specific preferences for the physical amenities of neighborhoods, I find a universal preference for higher income neighbors. In contrast to much of the literature, my results suggest white households have no aversion to minority neighbors. In the third chapter I estimate the effect of parental credit scores on the child's probability of attending and completing college. Parents in the US are increasingly supplementing the student loans available to their children with unsecured debt in their own name. This is the first paper on this topic to make use of direct observations of credit scores, rather than rely on proxies such as wealth shocks. I find that good parental credit significantly improves the child's probability of attending college, with a smaller (although still significant) effect on the probability of completing a four-year degree. I provide evidence that the estimated relationship is causal and not biased by, for example, unobserved ability. Additionally, I show that credit scores may affect attendance through channels other than access to the student loan market. I hypothesize households substitute the potential to borrow for precautionary savings. PB - University of Rochester CY - Rochester, NY VL - 3621255 N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2014 Last updated - 2014-07-09 First page - n/a U4 - intergenerational transfer JO - Essays in Urban and Labor Economics ER - TY - CHAP T1 - Effects of Late-Life Job Loss on Wealth and Labor Supply T2 - Lifecycle Events and Their Consequences: Job Loss, Family Change, and Declines in Health Y1 - 2013 A1 - Ann H. Stevens A1 - Jeremy G. Moulton ED - Kenneth A. Couch ED - Mary C. Daly ED - Julie M Zissimopoulos KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - This chapter considers the impact of job loss on economic well-being during retirement. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), it compares retirement wealth across individuals who experience a job loss and those who do not. Sizeable differences are reported, especially when the job loss occurs at young ages. Little evidence is found that displaced workers can make up these differences by shifting retirement to a later date. The inability to recover appears related to both the difficulty in becoming reemployed and, if a new job is found, working sufficiently long before retirement to offset the initial declines in assets. JF - Lifecycle Events and Their Consequences: Job Loss, Family Change, and Declines in Health PB - Stanford University Press CY - Stanford, CA U4 - job loss/displacement/late-life/retirement/wealth JO - Effects of Late-Life Job Loss on Wealth and Labor Supply ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in public economics Y1 - 2013 A1 - Lee, Insook KW - Adult children KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy AB - My dissertation, "Essays in Public Economics," is comprised of three chapters. The first one, titled "Altruism, Reciprocity, and Equity: A Unified Motive for Intergenerational Transfers" is to address the following question: Why do parents divide bequests equally while transferring inter vivos gifts unequally? Across times and places, why have there mainly been only two extreme choices of distribution of bequests: either to give them to just one child (unigeniture) or to divide them equally (equigeniture)? How can a motive for intergenerational transfers explain both "equal division puzzle" (the former) and polarized inheritance patterns (the latter)? This chapter presents a behavioral model that coherently rationalizes these empirical realities. Namely, as head of a family, a parent altruistically cares about children but also wants them to spend effort for family. However, effort is costly and individual level of each child is unverifiable to a third party adjudicator. Given this incomplete information, there rise only two stable equilibria: either equigeniture or unigeniture. When the productivity of effort rises, the evolution of inheritance pattern from unigeniture to equigeniture occurs. So equigeniture is eventually adopted due to a rise in the productivity throughout industrialization. Furthermore, if the parent wants to counterbalance inequality among children who exert equal effort, the greater amount of inter vivos gift is transferred to a child with lower relative income compared to his siblings, while bequests remain equally divided. This model is consistent with the aforementioned empirical realities but also lends itself to further empirical tests. The second chapter "Retirement and Exposure of Pension to Financial Market Fluctuations" studies how exposure of pension wealth to stock market fluctuations affects retirement behavior both theoretically and empirically. Characteristics of optimal plan for retirement are elaborated with reflecting that liquidizing pension wealth is more tied to retirement decisions than non-pension wealth as well as embodying time-sensitive restrictions on availability of pension benefits. Theoretical analysis finds that exposure of pension to financial market fluctuations does not always entail perfectly symmetric response of retirement. Exposure of pension to a positive shock actually brings responses of retirement only if the magnitude of the positive shock is large enough to compensate for foregone labor earnings and demand for resources necessary for post-retirement consumptions. In particular, whereas exposure of pension to a small negative shock leads to a decrease in retirement, exposure of pension to a positive shock with the same magnitude might not yield an increase in retirement. The third chapter, titled "Optimal Income Taxation and Optimal Revenue Mobilization," analyzes characteristics of nonlinear optimal income taxation and optimal revenue mobilization when the tax enforcement of a government is not costless (and thus not presumed to be perfect). The government cannot observe and verify an individual's innate ability although that ability turns out to cause inequality amongst them. This prevents the government from avoiding efficiency loss in the taxation, since each taxpayer can take advantage of private information over their own ability by reducing working hours to pretend to be less able than he truly is. Optimal income tax schedule is designed to minimize the efficiency loss from deterring such behavior to maximize social welfare. Moreover, the desired expenditure of the government is set for enhancing minimum living standard of society. In executing the tax schedule to finance this, however, tax evasion occurs due to imperfect enforcement. Although the government can verify the true amount of taxpayer's earnings, unlike their ability, it is costly to increase the enforcement rate. The optimal rate equalizes a gain of net increase in the tax revenue with a loss of decreased utility of risk-averse taxpayers from an incre ent in the rate. Notably, this cha ter shows that aggregate loss of tax revenue can theoretically justify non-zero tax rate on top earners. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) PB - University of California, Berkeley CY - Berkeley, CA VL - 3593892 UR - http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/1441350548?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQuest+Dissertations+%26+Theses+A%26I&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertat N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2013 Last updated - 2014-01-21 First page - n/a U4 - 0501:Economics JO - Essays in public economics ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on elderly asset management the role of medical expenses and housing Y1 - 2013 A1 - Li, Li KW - Housing KW - Medicare/Medicaid/Health Insurance KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy AB - With baby-boomers approaching their retirement age, the financial security of elderly Americans has become increasingly crucial for both policy-makers and retirees themselves. Based on the data from the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), this dissertation examines how healthcare costs and housing affect retirees' saving and investment decisions. In chapter 1, I investigate the pattern of asset allocation among elderly Americans and test if large out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenses were preventing older households from holding risky assets. My results show that the elderly are more likely to own risky financial assets while less likely to own housing assets as their OOP medical expenses go up. And conditional on ownership, relatively large OOP medical expenses are significantly correlated with high share of risky financial assets and low share of housing assets. These results imply that large OOP medical expenses may be capturing something other than poor health, which I explain by a "mechanical" effect that older households sell their houses to finance their large OOP medical expenses, driving up the risky financial assets share. In chapter 2, I develop a life-cycle dynamic programming model that particularly assumes elder homeowners would sell their houses to finance large medical expenses such as nursing home costs. My model finds that retirees with housing are less sensitive to the magnitude of medical expense shocks and thus maintain fewer precautionary savings. Without housing assets, retirees tend to take fewer risks while investing at the early stage of their retirement, but may have to take chances to finance elevated medical expenses as they approach the end of their life cycle. In chapter 3, I relax the borrowing constraint assumed in the prior two chapters and study the impact of health problems and related expenses on elderly households' financial security. I estimate the probability of medical default among 65 and above age group using various qualitative choice models. Results indicate that high medical debt to income ratio rather than OOP medical expense itself contributes to the high probability of default. PB - State University of New York at Albany CY - Albany, NY VL - 3591686 UR - http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/1434876559?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQuest+Dissertations+%26+Theses+A%26I&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertat N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2013 Last updated - 2014-01-22 First page - n/a U4 - 0501:Economics JO - Essays on elderly asset management the role of medical expenses and housing ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on gender differences in occupational choices and cohort analysis of saving adequacy Y1 - 2013 A1 - Li, Hsueh-Hsiang KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Demographics KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - The first chapter analyzes how human capital depreciation affects occupational gender segregation. Prior studies are biased because, given an occupational depreciation rate, female workers endogenously choose the duration of leave. I address this problem by proposing an alternative depreciation measure utilizing involuntary job displacement shocks. Using this depreciation proxy along with additional pecuniary and non-pecuniary occupational attributes, I estimate a conditional logit model of occupational choices separately for male and female college graduates using NLSY79 data. The results show that men and women differ largely in selection on many occupational attributes, however, the gender difference in depreciation is statistically insignificant after accounting for additional variance from the generated depreciation regressor. The second chapter explores the trend of gender differences in selection on occupational mobility. Women who interrupt their career and return to the labor force face the uncertainty of forming a new job match. This uncertainty can be large if the skills they acquired are occupational-specific. I estimate discrete occupational choices by different cohorts using cross-sectional Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1979 to 2008.I find that over the past 30 years, the consideration of occupational mobility has abated in female occupational decisions. In addition, gender gaps in work hours and visual perception also narrow over the past thirty years. Increasing female representation is evident in occupations with high entry barriers, long work hours, and visual intensive tasks. In the third chapter, we extend the dynamic programming approach used in Scholz, Seshadri, and Khitatrakun (2006) to assess the adequacy of retirement wealth preparation in 2008, using a sample of Americans born before 1954. We examine whether these households have accumulated the wealth necessary to maintain pre-retirement living standards in retirement. Our preliminary results suggest that over 70 percent of the households in our sample had accumulated sufficient resources in 2008. The results suggest a less optimistic view about the adequacy of Americans' retirement preparation than the findings for 1992 in Scholz, Seshadri, and Khitatrakun (2006). Economically disadvantaged households are significantly more likely than others to be under-saving and hence are natural targets for outreach and other efforts to improve financial capabilities. PB - The University of Wisconsin - Madison VL - 3590468 UR - http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/1432177424?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/Dissertations+%26+Theses+%40+CIC+Institutions&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dis N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2013 Last updated - 2013-09-24 First page - n/a U4 - labor Force JO - Essays on gender differences in occupational choices and cohort analysis of saving adequacy ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on Labor Economics Y1 - 2013 A1 - Tanaka, Atsuko KW - Cross-National KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other AB - This dissertation investigates determinants of labor supply decision and worker productivity. In the first two chapters, I investigate inefficiency due to statistical discrimination, in which employers---who do not observe the individual worker's labor force intention---offer a female worker fewer human capital investment opportunities than a male worker because of women's weaker labor force attachment. Owing to imperfect information, productivity inefficiency arises when women receive the same amount of investment despite the fact that women with shorter job tenure are potentially less productive than other workers. To study such a situation, I develop a model of statistical discrimination with a screening mechanism. In the third chapter, a joint project with Laurel Beck, I shift focus from statistical discrimination to worker's mental health as determinants of worker productivity. The first chapter applies the above model empirically to Japanese data, whose features exhibit evidence for statistical discrimination. The Japanese female labor market is found to be in a pooling equilibrium, thereby allowing statistical discrimination. I then estimate the effects of child-care subsides on the degree of statistical discrimination. The counterfactual analysis shows that child-care subsides could bring a drastic change in efficiency to Japan by altering the equilibrium of the worker-firm game from pooling to separating. The second chapter theoretically examines the factors that further complicate the screening process. I argue that long-term wage contracts implicitly distribute compensation from the employed to the unemployed and thus provide workers collective bargaining over wages. This finding allows us a new way to understand long-term contracts. The third chapter examines the effect of depression on various labor force outcomes. We use panel data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers (JPSC) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to follow respondents over several years, using questions about both mental health and labor force outcomes. In order to understand the causal effect of depression on work participation and compensation, we use deaths of the parents or children of respondents as an exogenous shock to mental health, and assess the impact of that event over time. PB - The University of Wisconsin - Madison VL - 3589854 N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2013 Last updated - 2013-09-20 First page - n/a U4 - mental Health JO - Essays on Labor Economics ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on Saving Behavior Y1 - 2013 A1 - Meryl Motika KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This dissertation combines three projects studying saving behavior. The first chapter presents a model of reference-dependent retirement saving behavior using a gain-loss utility function drawn from prospect theory. I show that this model predicts empirical characteristics of retirement saving behavior including adherence to defaults, under-saving, and the positive correlation between saving rates and financial knowledge. An additional testable implication of the model is that more financially-knowledgeable individuals will have wider variance than people with low financial knowledge. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, I show that this implication is also supported by empirical results. The second chapter investigates the effects of financial training and planning on saving in a laboratory experiment. Subjects choose when to use tokens to watch video clips over the course of a 50-minute session. Boredom encourages subjects to use tokens immediately, while increased video length in later rounds creates an incentive to use them later. Subjects who receive minimal instructions tend to use their tokens early. Intensive training increases saving rates. The planning treatment has no effect on low-training subjects, but leads intensively trained subjects to smooth tokens across the five rounds rather than spending early or waiting until the end. Evidence from correlations between spending tokens early and high elicited discount rate, as well as subjects' comments about struggling to wait before using tokens, provide support for the external validity of this experiment design. The third chapter examines the relationship between `Big 5' personality traits and low saving rates. Several traits are shown to predict under-saving, with low conscientiousness being particularly important and robust. I then investigate whether personality traits also explain the effects of education, financial literacy, and financial planning. This might occur if certain personality types tended to participate in these activities and also tended to save. I find that the effects of education and financial literacy are robust to personality. The influence of financial planning might be explainable by personality-based selection. PB - University of California, Irvine CY - Irvine, CA VL - 3565428 UR - http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/1413316840?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQuest+Dissertations+%26+Theses+A%26I&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertat N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2013 Last updated - 2014-01-23 First page - n/a U4 - 0501:Economics JO - Essays on Saving Behavior ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on the Economics of Tobacco Harm Reduction and on Financial Literacy and Retirement Decision-Making Y1 - 2013 A1 - Maki, Jennifer Anne KW - End of life decisions KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Risk Taking AB - This dissertation consists of four essays exploring policies and practices that highlight the role of information on decision making. The first two essays can be broadly described as evaluating policies pertaining to tobacco harm reduction--the practice of recommending the use of a less harmful tobacco alternative to those smokers who are unwilling or unable to quit smoking. If oral tobacco use is less harmful than cigarette smoking, consumers may be better off by substituting one product for the other. Although the risk associated with oral tobacco use has been studied in the past, previous estimates may be biased as they did not account for the role of risky behavior which is correlated with both health outcomes and tobacco use. To address this, I undertake an analysis of the association between oral tobacco and oral cancer, while controlling for risky health behaviors. My findings show that when controlling for risky sexual behavior, the estimated causal effect of oral tobacco use on oral cancer is significantly diminished. A better understanding of the true costs (in terms of health risks) associated with use of oral tobacco will allow individuals to make consumption decisions which maximize utility and encourage cost effective and efficient tobacco control policies. If smokers are made aware of the differing health risks between cigarette smoking and oral tobacco use, they may be able to improve their well-being by substituting one product for the other. However, labeling oral tobacco as a less harmful alternative may induce usage by those who would have otherwise abstained from tobacco use. To better understand these opposing consequences, I explore a policy change in Finland. Finland implemented a ban on the sale of oral tobacco when joining the European Union in 1995. I estimate that removing this less harmful alternative from the market increased the smoking rate, relative to what it would have been, by using the neighboring country of Sweden as a counterfactual. The second two essays look at improving employee retirement readiness through actions undertaken at the firm level. The employer sponsored 401(k) plan can be an effective tool in saving for retirement, yet many employees do not participate. If non-participation is due to low levels of financial literacy or due to inertia, an intervention may be effectual in encouraging participation. In my third essay, I report on the effectiveness of a simple informational intervention that highlighted the value of saving in conjunction with the employer match. This one page flyer demonstrated how saving today can lead to substantial wealth accumulation over time. I find that the intervention increases participation rates among younger employees relative to a control group. In the final essay, I explore the effect of pre-retirement seminars on the financial literacy and retirement plans of older employees at several large firms. These seminars are designed to provide information which will assist employees in making the important decisions they will face when transiting into retirement. Results suggest that participation did lead to an increase in financial literacy and that this learning is associated with a change in retirement plans. These last two essays underscore the importance of financial literacy in retirement planning, preparedness, and decision-making. PB - North Carolina State University CY - Raleigh, NC VL - 3575643 U4 - Economic theory JO - Essays on the Economics of Tobacco Harm Reduction and on Financial Literacy and Retirement Decision-Making ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Evidence that Self-Regulatory Mode Affects Retirement Savings JF - Journal of Aging and Social Policy Y1 - 2013 A1 - Hyungsoo Kim A1 - Franks, Becca A1 - Higgins, E. Tory KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Demographics KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - We examine how self-regulatory motivations of locomotion (initiation) and assessment (evaluation) are related to retirement wealth in middle-aged and older Americans. We test a hypothesis that high locomotion and some assessment levels predict high wealth levels. We use two national data sets: the 2008 Health and Retirement Study (N = 6,464) and the 2005 Midlife in the United States (N = 4,963). We found that a combination of high locomotion and moderate assessment motivation can maximize wealth accumulation. By creating this combination of locomotion and assessment motivations, policy interventions can be more effective in motivating wealth accumulation for retirement, such as a required annual review of retirement savings plans and understandable disclosure of the plans' costs. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT PB - 25 VL - 25 IS - 3 U4 - net worth/retirement Saving/Retirement planning/Savings/Older people/Locomotion/Motivation/wealth Accumulation/Public Policy ER - TY - THES T1 - An Examination on Un-Retirement: Retirees Returning to Work Y1 - 2013 A1 - Guillermo Ernest Gonzales KW - Adult children KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Healthcare KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - Research that examines retirees returning to work--defined here as un-retirement--is important, given increases in life expectancy and retirement insecurity. Unfortunately research in this area is nascent, limited in scope, and riddled with mixed findings. The current study is guided by three research questions: (1) how do economic resources, as well as human and social capital, relate to un-retirement?; (2) how do other productive activities, including formal and informal volunteering and caregiving, relate to un-retirement?; and (3) how does the retirement experience, including reasons to retire and retirement satisfaction, relate to un-retirement? The empirical literature on wealth and its association with un-retirement is mixed, and thus, an exploratory approach is taken. It is hypothesized that other economic resources (income, pension presence, and health insurances) are negatively related to un-retirement; for example, people with lower levels of income are more likely to return to work. It is hypothesized that higher levels of human capital and social capital are positively associated with un-retirement. It is also hypothesized that productive activities both compete with, and complement each other, and it depends on intensity and timing of events. Specifically, volunteering is a positively associated with un-retirement; that is volunteering complements going back to work. It is also suggested that caregiving is a barrier to un-retirement; that is, the two activities compete. It is hypothesized that forced retirement is positively associated with un-retirement. And finally, it is hypothesized that retirement satisfaction is negatively associated with un-retirement. Data were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) which provided a nationally representative sample of fully retired older adults aged 62 and older in 1998 (n=8,334). This sample was followed to 2008, which offered a 10-year period to observe factors associated with un-retirement. The fully conditional specification imputation method was used to complete all missing values of the study variables. Survival analysis tested the hypotheses and yielded information on the significant factors associated with un-retirement. Findings reveal that total household net worth and income were not significantly related to un-retirement. Retirees who possessed a pension (p <.05, hazard ratio (HR):0.78, confidence limits (CL):0.63-0.97) and employer sponsored retiree health insurance (p <.05, HR:0.77, CL:0.62-0.95) were 22% and 23% less likely to return to work when compared to people who did not possess such economic resources for retirement. Generally, individuals with higher levels of human capital--better health (p <.0001, HR:1.31, CL:1.20-1.44), high-skilled (p <.05, HR:1.82, CL:1.20-2.75) and mid-skilled occupational workers (p <.05, HR:1.57, CL:1.07-2.28)--were more likely to return to work when compared to low-skilled occupational workers. This suggests that the probability of returning to work increased by 31% for every one unit increase in self-rated health; and the probability of returning to work were 82% and 57% higher for high and mid-skilled workers compared to low-skilled workers. Education, however, was negatively related to un-retirement when other productive activities were examined ( p <.05, HR: 0.96, CL:0.93-0.99), which suggests that for every unit increase in education, the probability of returning to work decreased by 4%. Certain dimensions of social capital were also significantly related to un-retirement; where the probability of returning to work increased by 75% for people who were married to an employed spouse/partner ( p <.0001, HR:1.75, CL:1.36-2.23). Formal and informal volunteering were significant predictors to work; where volunteers were between 38% and 58% more likely to return to work when compared to non-volunteers. However, providing care to a spouse was a major barrier to returning to work; where caregivers were approximately 80% less likely to return to work in subsequent waves when ompared to non-caregivers ( p <.01 PB - Washington University in St. Louis CY - St. Louis, MO VL - 3593208 UR - http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/1438181057?accountid=14667http://mgetit.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQuest+Dissertations+%26+Theses+A%26I&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertat N1 - Copyright - Copyright ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2013 Last updated - 2014-01-21 First page - n/a U4 - 0452:Social work JO - An Examination on Un-Retirement: Retirees Returning to Work ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in Dynamic Macroeconomic Policy Y1 - 2012 A1 - Shourideh, Ali KW - Event History/Life Cycle KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other KW - Pensions KW - Public Policy AB - In this dissertation, we study optimal macroeconomic policy in dynamic environments. In Chapter 1, we focus on optimal tax policies in environments with idiosyncratic capital income risk. We develop a model in which entrepreneurs are subject to idiosyncratic shocks to their capital income. Shocks to capital income have two components: (1) a component that is known to the entrepreneur at the time of investment, (2) a residual component that is realized after investment. This creates two types of incentive problems: a hidden type problem and a hidden action problem. We show that, absent private markets for insurance of idiosyncratic risk, entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial capital income should be taxed differently. Moreover, the government should subsidize non-entrepreneurial capital income when the known and lowest value. Furthermore, for a wide variety of distributions, the optimal tax schedule is progressive with respect to entrepreneurial capital income. Finally, the results regarding taxation of entrepreneurial income depend on the extent to which incentives and insurance are provided by private contracts. In particular, private contracts can approximately implement the efficient allocation if convertible securities are available. The prevalence of these securities in venture capital contracts suggest that the forces identified here are important in practice. In Chapter 2, we study optimal intergenerational transmission of consumption and wealth with endogenous fertility. We use an extended Barro-Becker model of endogenous fertility, in which parents are heterogeneous in their labor productivity, to study the efficient degree of consumption inequality in the long run when parents productivity is private information. We show that a feature of the informationally constrained optimal insurance contract is that there is a stationary distribution over per capita continuation utilities, i.e. there is an efficient amount of long run inequality. This contrasts with much of the earlier literature on dynamic contracting where "immiseration'" occurs. Further, the model has interesting and novel implications for the policies that can be used to implement the efficient allocation. Two examples of this are: (1) estate taxes are positive and (2) there are positive taxes on family size. In Chapter 3, we focus on optimal design of pension systems in providing incentives for efficient retirement. We study lifecycle environments with active intensive and extensive labor margins. First, we analytically characterize Pareto efficient policies when the main tension is between redistribution and provision of incentives: while it may be more efficient to have highly productive individuals work more and retire older, earlier retirement may be needed to give them incentives to fully realize their productivity when they work. We show that, under plausible conditions, efficient retirement ages increase in lifetime earnings. We also show that this pattern is implemented by pension benefits that not only depend on the age of retirement but are designed to be actuarially unfair. Second, using individual earnings and retirement data for the U.S. as well as intensive and extensive labor elasticities, we calibrate policy models to simulate robust implications: it is efficient for individuals with higher lifetime earning to retire (i) older than they do in the data and (ii) older than their less productive peers, in sharp contrast to the pattern observed in the data. In Chapter 4, we focus on optimal policies in remedying problems in secondary loan markets. Loan originators often securitize some loans in secondary loan markets and hold on to others. New issuances in such secondary markets collapse abruptly on occasion, typically when collateral values used to secure the underlying loans fall and these collapses are viewed by policymakers as inefficient. We develop a dynamic adverse selection model in which small reductions in that a variety of policies intended to remedy market inefficiencies do not do so. PB - University of Minnesota CY - Minneapolis, MN VL - Ph.D. UR - https://hdl.handle.net/11299/130295 U4 - Economics ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on family demography, household finance, and economics of the family Y1 - 2012 A1 - Fenaba R. Addo KW - Adult children KW - Demographics KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Healthcare KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Women and Minorities AB - This dissertation examines the intersection of financial resources, family demography and economic well-being of American households at transitional periods in the life course. Changes in union formation, the demographic composition of the population, and family structure since the latter part of the twentieth century have challenged existing theories on household formation, individual decision-making, and economic well-being (Bumpass, 1990). With the increase in woman's labor force participation, the rise of cohabitation, pre-marital childbirth, and single-parent households, conventional models used to explain recent trends in marriage market dynamics, intra-household resource allocation, and wealth inequality are continuously tested, challenged, and revamped to keep pace with a society in a current state of demographic and economic flux. Chapter one focuses on early and young adulthood and the role of consumer and education loan debt in transitioning into coresidential relationships using a sample of youth coming of age at the turn of the twenty-first century and during a period of economic expansion, increased college enrollment and growing socioeconomic divide in marital patterns in the United States. Results suggest total debt amount is associated with cohabitation, increasing the odds of cohabitation over marriage and remaining single for both women and men. First marriage is positively associated with greater educational attainment for this cohort of young adults, but women with education loan debt are more likely to delay marrying and cohabit first. Chapter two (co-authored with Daniel T. Lichter) addresses the racial wealth gap by exploring the relationship between marriage and marital histories on wealth accumulation of older Black and White women. Marital and relationship histories are strongly associated with the wealth accumulation process. Women who marry and stay married accumulated levels of wealth that exceeded those of other women with disrupted family lives. The marriage-wealth nexus is sensitive to a women's position in the wealth distribution, and decomposition analyses highlight the non-trivial role of racial disparities in marital histories in accounting for the racial wealth gap. The third and final chapter uses seven waves of individual-level data from the Health and Retirement Survey from 1998-2008 to analyze whether there is a causal effect of being an informal basic needs or financial caregiver to an aging parent on one's health outcomes (self-assessed health and depression) and health behaviors (exercise and smoking). The results suggest a positive effect on depressive symptoms of basic needs caregiving for unmarried adult children, and that they may be selecting into that role because of their poor health. Manifestations of caregiving in future periods include, basic needs caregiving increasing the probability of smoking for married women and financial caregiving increases depressive symptoms for unmarried men. These findings suggest that the financial costs of caregiving can influence adult children's health outcomes, in particular for those not currently in a marital union. PB - Cornell University CY - Ithaca, NY VL - Ph.D. UR - https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/31034 U4 - socioeconomic Differences ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on human capital, expectations and behaviors Y1 - 2012 A1 - Jia, Man KW - Demographics KW - Expectations KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Risk Taking AB - Chapter 1: While previous theoretical analysis suggests that racial differences in death rates might play an important role in explaining the black-white education gap in the U.S., there is little empirical research to test this implication. This paper estimates the extent to which differences in expected mortality risks prior to entering college can explain differences in adult educational attainment in the 2000s, using data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). This study finds that the impact of mortality is not as important as suggested by prior research. Specifically, of the total black-white education gap (roughly 1.12 schooling years), only about 0.05 years or less can be attributed to differences in mortality expectations. As this study confirms, the role of self-reported mortality expectations in explaining black-white education gap is small, and the impacts of death expectations from actual death rates on education are statistically insignificant for reference groups. Chapter 2: The second chapter examines whether individuals are likely to alter personal health-related behaviors once they increase their subjective longevity expectations. To determine if there is a relationship between health behaviors and longevity beliefs, I test one of implications of the Cutler-Glaeser (2009) smoking decision model, which suggests that nonsmokers whose expected survival probabilities have increased are unlikely to start smoking. This study uses data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which is conducted every two years, from 1992 to 2010 (Waves 1-10). Specifically, the HRS data show that a certain share (2.13%) of nonsmokers at Wave t-1 whose subjective expected longevity beliefs increased across two waves did start smoking at Wave t. This small percentage is close to the fraction of new smokers who have steady or decreased survival beliefs (1.99% and 2.19%, respectively). This finding also holds true for other behaviors including heavy drinking, obesity, and physical inactivity. Thus, the findings I present based on the HRS data contrasts with the Cutler-Glaeser model. Chapter 3: Using scores from the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT), Herrnstein and Murray (1994) reported that intelligence can be a powerful predictor of a range of outcomes related to social behaviors (e.g., incarceration, marriage, out-of-wedlock birth, low birth weight and poverty). In contrast, a recent study found that measured intelligence using the same AFQT scores plays a considerably smaller role on an important socioeconomic indicator, namely, hourly wages as measured from 2000 to 2010. My third paper attempts to replicate the Herrnstein and Murray study using a different data set, the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to look into several behaviorally-related social outcomes. The main finding is that, in general, the role of AFQT scores in predicting social behaviors has not substantially changed over the last 20 years. I provide a few possible explanations for this finding. PB - Northeastern University CY - Boston, MA VL - Ph.D. UR - https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:1044 U4 - Intelligence ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The effect of late-life debt use on retirement decisions JF - Social Science Research Y1 - 2011 A1 - Mann, Allison KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - This paper examines parallel shifts in late life debt use and retirement behaviors. After discussing the conceptual linkages between credit and labor markets, I use data from the 1992 to 2008 waves of the Health and Retirement Study to examine the temporal patterning of retirement and debt behaviors. I rely on the longitudinal structure of the data to estimate the effects of debt accumulation on retirement behaviors, using alternative specifications to identify treatment and control groups. The findings suggest that debt accumulation in later life has a significant effect on decisions to remain in the workforce in later years. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT PB - 40 VL - 40 IS - 6 U4 - Retirement/Social identity/Social identity/Wealth/Personal finance ER - TY - RPRT T1 - The Effects of the Financial Crisis on Actual and Anticipated Consumption Y1 - 2011 A1 - Michael D Hurd A1 - Susann Rohwedder KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - We studied how households adjust their spending in response to the financial crisis. Based on five waves of data from the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey, we quantified the reduction in total consumption and in specific categories of consumption in the older population at large and by stock ownership, both as a proxy for wealth and to test assumptions about whether stock ownership was associated with different responses. In particular, we compared consumption changes between 2007 and 2009 with consumption changes over prior years. We used panel data on anticipated changes in spending at retirement to quantify the effects of the financial crisis on well- being in retirement via a difference-in-differences approach. JF - Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Center Working Paper PB - Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Center, University of Michigan CY - Ann Arbor, MI UR - https://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/the-effects-of-the-financial-crisis-on-actual-and-anticipated-consumption-2/ U4 - Consumption/household spending/household spending/great Recession/retirement planning ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in Labor Economics Y1 - 2011 A1 - McFall, Brooke Helppie KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - This dissertation is composed of two essays, both which use data from original survey projects to examine issues related to work choice. The first essay examines the labor supply effects of the wealth losses during the stock market crash of 2008 and 2009. A life-cycle model incorporating both consumption and retirement timing implies that exogenous wealth losses should delay optimal retirement timing. Using data from the Cognitive Economics Study and the Health and Retirement Study, this essay quantifies the wealth losses suffered by older Americans in terms of the additional length of time they would have to work to maintain the pre-crash consumption plan implied by their wealth holdings and expected retirement timing. Using these measures, Tobit regressions and a novel method for reducing the impact of error-ridden observations are used to examine the relationship between this measure of wealth loss and retirement planning. Several potential sources of heterogeneity in individuals' reactions to the crash are also examined. Results imply that wealth losses of 2008 and 2009 are associated with an increase in planned retirement age on the order of a few weeks to a few months for the average older American, but up to several months for some segments of the population. These results are consistent with results of recent studies and the life-cycle model, but stand in contrast to other examinations of wealth shocks on the general population of older Americans. The second essay is a product of the Job Seekers Study. The essay extends Mincer's seminal theory of family migration to allow couples to adjust to migration constraints by living apart, and examine the ways in which new PhD economists adjust to migration constraints imposed on them by their spouses or partners. Both the impact of migration constraints on job outcomes and the impact of job considerations on relationship outcomes are analyzed. The essay finds that migration constraints result in small costs in terms of job outcomes, relative to many existing studies, and that adjustment through living apart is common. These results imply that existing studies may overestimate the job impact of migration constraints. PB - University of Michigan CY - Ann Arbor, MI VL - Ph.D. U4 - wealth ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The Effect of Inheritance Receipt on Retirement JF - Review of Economics and Statistics Y1 - 2010 A1 - Brown, Jeffrey R. A1 - Courtney Coile A1 - Weisbenner, Scott J KW - Adult children KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - This paper provides new evidence on how wealth shocks influence retirement behavior. Economic theory generally posits that leisure is a normal good, yet it is difficult to obtain reliable empirical estimates of the wealth effect because wealth is correlated with numerous unobservable characteristics that affect labor supply. We use inheritance receipt as a wealth shock and find that it is associated with a significant increase in the probability of retirement, especially when the inheritance is unexpected. This evidence has important implications for how public policies, such as pension or tax reform, may influence retirement behavior through the wealth effect. PB - 92 VL - 92 IS - 2 U4 - Wealth/Impact analysis/Retirement planning/Inheritances/Studies/Labor supply ER - TY - RPRT T1 - The Effects of Medicaid and Medicare Reforms on the Elderly s Savings and Medical Expenditures Y1 - 2010 A1 - Mariacristina De Nardi A1 - Eric French A1 - John Bailey Jones A1 - Michigan Retirement Research Center KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This study explores the relationship between general human capital investment, financial knowledge, occupational spillovers, and the accumulation of wealth in a primarily descriptive manner. Drawing upon human capital theory and following previous related work by Delavande, Rohwedder and Willis (2008), we hypothesized that individuals with daily exposure to financial knowledge through their occupation would benefit by having greater financial knowledge that would translate into greater wealth accumulation than individuals who do not enjoy such spillovers from their occupation. Using data from the Cognitive Economics Study and the Health and Retirement Study, we find strong evidence that individuals in financial occupations tend to have greater financial knowledge and moderate evidence that they also have greater wealth accumulation. JF - Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Working Paper PB - The University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center CY - Ann Arbor, MI UR - https://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/the-effects-of-medicaid-and-medicare-reforms-on-the-elderlys-savings-and-medical-expenditures-2/ U4 - human Capital/financial knowledge/wealth Accumulation/Cognitive Economics Study ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Employment Patterns and Determinants Among Older Individuals with a History of Short-Duration Jobs Y1 - 2010 A1 - Kevin E. Cahill A1 - Michael D. Giandrea A1 - Joseph F. Quinn KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Pensions KW - Public Policy KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction KW - Social Security KW - Women and Minorities AB - Many studies of labor force withdrawal patterns have focused on individuals who have had career jobs. This paper compares the demographic and economic characteristics of individuals who have never had a full-time career (FTC) job with those who have, and compares the timing and types of job switches that both groups make later in life. The comparison between non-FTC and FTC individuals is important because decisions by policymakers based on the existing retirement literature may have unintended consequences for individuals with only a series of short-duration jobs. We use a sample of respondents from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who have worked since age 50, and stratify respondents according to whether an individual has ever had a job that consists of 1,600 or more hours per year and lasts for at least ten years (i.e., a full-time career job). We find that individuals without FTC jobs are a heterogeneous group, representing individuals in many wage and occupational categories. Not surprisingly, we also find that individuals without FTC jobs are less likely than those with FTC jobs to be working in subsequent survey years. However, we find that the labor force withdrawal patterns of non-FTC individuals are similar to those of FTC individuals in many respects. In particular, individuals without FTC jobs change jobs later in life just as frequently as those with FTC jobs. Switching rates between wage-and-salary employment to self-employment and between white-collar and blue-collar jobs are largely similar by FTC status, as are reductions in wages later in life. Overall, the findings reveal that the work decisions later in life of individuals who have never had career employment are diverse, just as they are for individuals with career jobs. JF - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Working Papers PB - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CY - Washington, D.C. VL - 440 UR - https://www.bls.gov/osmr/research-papers/2010/ec100080.htm IS - 33 N1 - Using Smart Source Parsing pp U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Working Papers: 440 U4 - Retirement, Retirement Policies/Economics of the Elderly/Economics of the Handicapped/Non-labor Market Discrimination/Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits/Private Pensions/Social Security/Public Pensions/Economics of Aging/Bridge Jobs/Gradual Retirement ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in contemporary tax law changes T2 - Economics Y1 - 2010 A1 - Biswas, Arpita KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other KW - Public Policy AB - In the first essay, I provide estimates of price and income elasticities of charitable contributions which reveal substantial differences in giving patterns across different income groups. The paper develops an intertemporal model of giving which predicts that lowering current income taxes induces substitution away from current giving towards giving in future periods. Cragg's Generalized Tobit model applied to Consumer Expenditure data from 1997-2006 provides estimates of income and price elasticities conditioned upon contribution, which range between 0.17 to 0.81 and -0.50 to -1.16 respectively. Empirical analysis shows substantial evidence of intertemporal substitution, implying that if the difference between future and current prices increase by 1 percent, current period giving increases by 0.8 percent. The second essay is an extension of the first, wherein I provide estimates of how reduction in income tax rates brought about by EGTRRA, 2001 and alternative tax rate regimes affect charitable contributions. Results from difference-in-difference analysis suggests that after Economic Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA), itemizers reduced their contributions by 24% and the likelihood of contributions fell by 10%. While limiting the tax deductibility to 28% reduces price elasticity by 0.02 percentage points, a flat tax rate regime makes contributions 11 percentage points more price elastic compared to the progressive tax rate system. The third essay focuses on another contemporary tax law change, reduction in capital gains and dividend tax rates brought about by Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act, 2003. I study two main impacts of the law change, the effect on portfolio allocation between retirement and non-retirement accounts and the effect on labor supply decisions. Difference-in-difference analysis using Health and Retirement Study finds that for the age group above 55, annual investments in IRA fall by $175 and the likelihood of holding IRAs fall by 11%. With respect to labor market behavior, annual labor supply for individuals who diversify their assets fall by 41 hours and about 9 individuals drop out of the labor force. Results using planned retirement age as a dependent variable shows increase in expected retirement age, indicating intertemporal substitution of labor supply. JF - Economics PB - Clemson University VL - Ph.D. UR - https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/589/ U4 - Tax law JO - Essays in contemporary tax law changes ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Estimating willingness to pay for medicare using a dynamic life-cycle model of demand for health insurance JF - Journal of Econometrics Y1 - 2010 A1 - Ahmed Khwaja KW - Medicare/Medicaid/Health Insurance KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other KW - Public Policy AB - Medicare is the largest health insurance program in the US. This paper uses a dynamic random utility model of demand for health insurance in a life-cycle human capital framework with endogenous production of health to calculate the individual willingness to pay (WTP) for Medicare. The model accounts for the feature that the demand for health insurance is derived through the demand for health, which is jointly determined with the production of health over the life-cycle. The WTP measure incorporates the effects of Medicare insurance on aggregate consumption through effects on medical expenditures and mortality, and consumption utility of health. The model is estimated using panel data from the Health and Retirement Study. The average WTP or change in lifetime expected utility resulting from delaying the age of eligibility to 67 is found to be 24,947 in 1991 dollars ( 39,435 in 2008 dollars). However, there is considerable variation in the WTP, e.g., in 1991 dollars the WTP of individuals who have less than a high school education and are white is 28,347 ( 44,810 in 2008 dollars), while the WTP of those with at least a college degree and who are neither white nor black is 15,584 ( 24,635 in 2008 dollars). More generally, the less educated have a higher WTP to avoid a policy change that delays availability of Medicare benefits. Additional model simulations imply that the primary benefits of Medicare are insurance against medical expenditures with relatively smaller benefits in terms of improved health status and longevity. Medicare also leads to large increases in medical utilization due to deferring of medical care prior to eligibility. PB - 156 VL - 156 IS - 1 U4 - health Insurance/Willingness to pay/Medicare/Human capital/Economic models/Public Policy ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Estimation and Impact of Gender Differences in Risk Tolerance JF - Economic Inquiry Y1 - 2010 A1 - Neelakantan, Urvi KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Pensions KW - Risk Taking AB - This paper provides numerical estimates of the distributions of risk tolerance for men and women. A simple model of individual portfolio choice is calibrated to data on Individual Retirement Accounts from the Health and Retirement Study to obtain the estimates. Results show that women tend to be less risk-tolerant than men. The estimates are then used to measure the impact of risk tolerance on wealth accumulation. Simulations show that the difference in risk tolerance can account for around 10 of the gender difference in accumulated wealth. PB - 48 VL - 48 IS - 1 U4 - risk tolerance/individual retirement accounts/wealth accumulation ER - TY - CHAP T1 - The Effect of Large Capital Gains or Losses on Retirement T2 - Developments in the economics of aging Y1 - 2009 A1 - Michael D Hurd A1 - Reti, Monika A1 - Susann Rohwedder ED - David A Wise KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction JF - Developments in the economics of aging PB - University of Chicago Press CY - Chicago SN - 0-226-90335-4 UR - https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/developments-economics-aging/effect-large-capital-gains-or-losses-retirement U4 - Early Retirement/Wealth Accumulation/Stock Market ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Effects of Human Capital on the Likelihood of Working in Later Life JF - Hallym International Journal of Aging Y1 - 2009 A1 - Lee, Yoon G. A1 - Susan L. Brown KW - Demographics KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - Using data from the 2004 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), this study attempted to profile individuals in the work force in later life and examined the effects of human capital and other socioeconomic factors on the likelihood of working in later life among individuals aged 65 or older. The results of the logistic regression analysis indicated that individuals with more education, more work experience, in better health, at young ages, who were male, and who were unmarried were more likely to work in the labor force past the age of 65. This study concluded that human capital factors, such as formal education, work experience, and health had significant impacts on the likelihood of individuals working in later life. Implications and conclusions were drawn based on the findings of the study. PB - 11 VL - 11 IS - 2 U4 - aging population/human capital/labor force participation/older workers ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Evaluating Micro-Survey Estimates of Wealth and Saving Y1 - 2009 A1 - Barry Bosworth A1 - Smart, Rosanna KW - Adult children KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This paper presents an overview of changes in household wealth accumulation and saving using wealth data from three micro-level surveys: Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We provide comparisons to the macroeconomic estimates of wealth accumulation and saving, explore problems in constructing household-level valuations of wealth, and assess the value of using household-level datasets to examine wealth accumulation and saving behavior in the United States. Our first analysis compares the macroeconomic estimates of wealth from the Flow of Funds to comparable measures from the SCF, PSID and HRS. The Flow of Funds and SCF valuations of net worth correspond closely up to 1998. Yet, after1998, the SCF reports a much more rapid acceleration of wealth, concentrated in equity-type assets. The estimates of wealth in the PSID and HRS are very similar to the SCF for the bottom 95 percent of the wealth distribution, diverging only for the top five percent of households. Second, we evaluate the extent of bias in the wealth estimates that may have developed in the longitudinal surveys due to attrition. We conclude that both surveys remain very representative of the underlying population as judged by a comparison with the lower 95 percent of households in the SCF. We also use the longitudinal data to estimate the relationship between wealth and mortality, and adjustment factors for differential mortality that can be used to adjust the age-wealth profile obtained from cross-sectional surveys, such as the SCF. The result is greater evidence of wealth decumulation at older ages. Finally, we use the panel nature of the PSID and HRS to construct household-level measures of wealth accumulation and partition those changes between the contribution of new saving and valuation changes. The overall changes in wealth match the macroeconomic data closely, showing a secular rise in wealth-income ratios. Although the measures of saving do demonstrate consistent differences in saving among major socio-economic groups, they do not reflect the general decline in saving rates that is apparent in the aggregate data for the past two decades. JF - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College Working Papers PB - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College CY - Boston UR - https://crr.bc.edu/working-papers/evaluating-micro-survey-estimates-of-wealth-and-saving/ U4 - Wealth Accumulation/Saving/Households ER - TY - THES T1 - The Effect of Health and Health Risk Factors on Non-Housing Wealth and Medical Expenses Y1 - 2007 A1 - Rodriguez-Flores, Alicia KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of health conditions and health risk factors on non-housing wealth changes of older adults. The research was based on Grossman's economic model of health which proposes that health stock is determined by the individual's current and past inputs and behavior. The 4 th and 6 th waves of the Health and Retirement Study were used to examine the relationship between health problems and health risk factors and the percentage change of non-housing wealth, out-of-pocket medical expenses, and total medical expenses. For couples, changes in non-housing wealth were negatively related to a head of household who abused alcohol, and to a spouse who smoked; wealth changes were positively related to a spouse who was physically active. For single individuals, mild health conditions were negatively related to wealth changes; problem drinking was positively related to changes in non-housing wealth. Out-of-pocket and total medical expenses were also influenced by health conditions and health risk factors. In summary, this research revealed that health risk factors can affect total wealth as well as increase medical expenses. Those who advise consumers in regard to wealth accumulation should include the effect of health and health risk factors. Similarly, those who advise consumers with regard to health and health risk factors should include guidance about the effect of healthy behaviors on wealth. PB - Purdue University UR - https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dissertations/AAI3307419/ U4 - Wealth JO - The Effect of Health and Health Risk Factors on Non-Housing Wealth and Medical Expenses ER - TY - RPRT T1 - The Effect of Subjective Survival Probabilities on Retirement and Wealth in the United States Y1 - 2007 A1 - David E Bloom A1 - Canning, David A1 - Moore, Michael A1 - Song, Younghwan KW - Expectations KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - We explore the proposition that expected longevity affects retirement decisions and accumulated wealth using micro data drawn from the Health and Retirement Study for the United States. We use data on a person s subjective probability of survival to age 75 as a proxy for their prospective lifespan. In order to control for the presence of measurement error and focal points in responses, as well as reverse causality, we instrument subjective survival probabilities using information on current age, or age at death, of the respondent s parents. Our estimates indicate that increased subjective probabilities of survival result in increased household wealth among couples, with no effect on the length of the working life. These findings are consistent with the view that retirement decisions are driven by institutional constraints and incentives and that a longer expected lifespan leads to increased wealth accumulation. PB - University of St. Gallen, World Demographic Association U4 - Subjective Probabilities of Survival/Wealth Accumulation ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Enhancing the Quality of Data on the Measurement of Income and Wealth Y1 - 2007 A1 - Juster, F. Thomas A1 - Cao, Honggao A1 - Mick P. Couper A1 - Daniel H. Hill A1 - Michael D Hurd A1 - Joseph P. Lupton A1 - Michael M. Perry A1 - James P Smith KW - Income KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - Over the last decade or so, a substantial effort has gone into the design of a series of methodological investigations aimed at enhancing the quality of survey data on income and wealth. These investigations have largely been conducted at the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, and have mainly involved two longitudinal surveys: the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), with a first wave beginning in 1992 and continued thereafter every other year through 2004; and the Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) Study, begun in 1993 and continued in 1995 and 1998, then in every other year through 2004. Surveys for the year 2006 are currently in the field. This paper provides an overview of the main studies and summarizes what has been learned so far. The studies include; a paper by Juster and Smith (Improving the Quality of Economic Data: Lessons from the HRS and AHEAD, JASA, 1997); a paper by Juster, Cao, Perry and Couper (The Effect of Unfolding Brackets on the Quality of Wealth Data in HRS, MRRC Working Paper, WP 2006-113, January 2006); a paper by Hurd, Juster and Smith (Enhancing the Quality of Data on Income: Recent Innovations from the HRS, Journal of Human Resources, Summer 2003); a paper by Juster, Lupton and Cao (Ensuring Time-Series Consistency in Estimates of Income and Wealth, MRRC Working Paper, WP 2002-030, July 2002); a paper by Cao and Juster (Correcting Second-Home Equity in HRS/AHEAD: MRRC Working Paper WP 2004-081, June 2004); and a paper by Rohwedder, Haider and Hurd (RAND Working Paper, 2004). JF - Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Center Research Paper PB - Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Center, University of Michigan CY - Ann Arbor, MI UR - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1095815 U4 - Methodology/Data Quality/income/Wealth ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays in Labor Economics: Alcohol consumption and socioeconomic outcomes T2 - Economics Y1 - 2007 A1 - Sarpong, Eric KW - Demographics KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - Recent studies indicate that alcohol consumption may affect socioeconomic outcomes through its effects on health capital and social capital. If, in fact, differences in socioeconomic outcomes are causally linked to differences in alcohol consumption, then lack of adequate insight into such connectivity may adversely affect the labor market and retirement outcomes of some groups of individuals in society. The rationale for examining the relationship between alcohol consumption and socioeconomic outcomes stems from growing concerns about deterioration in retirement outcomes resulting from declining health capital and recent shifts to incorporate social capital as a key performance or productivity indicator by employers. In two essays, this research examines the impact of alcohol consumption on wealth at retirement using data from the RAND Health and Retirement Study (HRS) from 1992 through 2002; and the effects of alcohol consumption on employment duration and earnings using the Geocode version of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY1979) micro dataset from 1984 through 1996. The theoretical foundation of the association between alcohol use and economic outcomes relies on Grossman's (1972) health capital model. Empirically, the research relies on panel data methods and duration analysis to determine whether differences in socioeconomic outcomes can be explained by differences in alcohol consumption. Using both duration analysis and panel data methods, the results indicate that drinking is positively related to improved socioeconomic outcomes as compared to total abstention, when endogeneity has not been taken into account. In contrast, under the duration analysis, estimation via instrumental variables approach indicates that alcohol consumption shortens employment duration. Panel data estimation indicates that the relationship between alcohol consumption and socioeconomic outcomes is rather an inverted U-shaped for some specifications, when endogeneity has been taken into account. Additionally, the effects of drinking on retirement wealth and earnings tend to diminish with the instrumental variables approach. The findings were unchanged even with abstainers partitioned into lifetime abstainers and infrequent or light drinkers (less than one drinking day per week). The results also confirm the positive association between human capital measures such as the level of education and economic outcomes and also the negative relationship between alcohol consumption and taxes on alcoholic beverages. This dissertation contributes to the literature on alcohol-socioeconomic outcomes nexus and has implications for policies related to health, social capital and alcohol since a more inclusive alcohol and/or health policy could improve civic responsibility and narrow the health capital and social capital gap, both of which are critical to individual level socioeconomic success. JF - Economics PB - Georgia State University CY - Atlanta, GA VL - Doctor of Philosophy UR - https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/econ_diss/25/ U4 - Labor Force Participation ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on Optimal Portfolio Choice and Unemployment Insurance Y1 - 2007 A1 - Luo, Jia KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This dissertation consists of two essays exploring optimal portfolio choice over the life cycle and optimal unemployment insurance program. The first essay explores the effects of uninsurable risk of health expenditures as well as labor income risk on portfolio choice in a realistically calibrated life-cycle model. Most of the existing literature that examines labor income risk and its effect on portfolio composition cannot explain continued declines in risk-taking with age after retirement. This paper uses MEPS (Medical Expenditure Panel Survey) and HRS (Health and Retirement Study) data to calibrate uncertain medical expenses for the retired. With the consideration of idiosyncratic health expense risk in addition to labor income risk, the model can generate declining financial risk-taking with age after retirement, and therefore fits the data much better than those studies which consider labor income alone. Additionally, regressions on simulated data also show that investors with poorer health tend to hold a smaller share of stocks in their portfolios, which is consistent with the empirical pattern of portfolio choice. Finally, using the model I have developed, I predict the impact of changes in government health insurance programs, such as the expansion of the Medicare program, on individuals' portfolio choices. Simulated results show that a more generous Medicare policy significantly increases the proportion of financial wealth held in equities for the retired. The second essay proposes the optimal design of the unemployment insurance contract in an environment with consumption commitments in which people cannot substitute freely among different goods within a single period. The optimal plan I obtain involves a relatively flat decreasing sequence of insurance payments over some duration, which is then followed by a large drop to a very low level of transfer. The results fit current policy well, and therefore give an explanation to justify the current policy. Additionally, the model predicts that if we change from the current unemployment program to the optimal contract, the government will only save 1.7% in unemployment payments, which shows that current policy is not as flawed as researchers have traditionally believed. In fact, to achieve efficiency, the efficient unemployment transfers should include a jump, similar to what we observe in practice. PB - University of California, Los Angeles U4 - Health Expenditures JO - Essays on Optimal Portfolio Choice and Unemployment Insurance ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Earnings and Women's Retirement Security Y1 - 2006 A1 - Alicia H. Munnell A1 - Natalia A. Zhivan KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Women and Minorities AB - As the U.S. population ages, traditional sources of retirement income will likely fall short of what is needed to maintain pre-retirement living standards for many individuals. The issue of retirement security is especially important for women, because even today nearly 30 percent of single women, who represent a majority of households at older ages, are classified as poor or near-poor. One solution to the retirement security challenge is for women to work more during their lifetimes and to stay in the workforce longer as they age. By and large, those who continue to work until their mid-60s or beyond do not end up poor. The question is explored in this study is what determines women's labor force activity at older ages and what determines when they retire. Only by understanding these levers is it possible to make changes that are likely to encourage stronger labor force participation, and thus greater retirement security, for women. JF - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College Working Papers PB - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College CY - Boston UR - https://crr.bc.edu/working-papers/earnings-and-womens-retirement-security/ U4 - WOMEN/Labor Force Participation/Retirement Wealth ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The Effect of Military Service on Wealth Accumulation JF - Research on Aging Y1 - 2006 A1 - Fitzgerald, Kelly G. KW - Event History/Life Cycle KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This study examines the association between serving active military duty and wealth accumulation. It was expected that those who served active duty would be more likely to accumulate less wealth than nonveterans. Using data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Study, a sample of 5,800 men was analyzed to determine the relationship between the length of time spent on active military duty and net worth. Multiple regressions suggest that factors commonly associated with wealth accumulation significantly affect net worth. More important, the total number of years served was very significant in that additional years of service decreased net worth. The results were insignificant for respondents who served more than 20 years but suggest that extended military service may positively affect net worth. Overall, the results show that there is an economic disincentive to serve in the military, which may affect the ability of veterans to accumulate wealth and future military recruitment. PB - 28 VL - 28 IS - 1 U4 - Life Events/Net Worth/Wealth Accumulation ER - TY - RPRT T1 - The Effect of Subjective Survival Probabilities on Retirement and Wealth in the United States Y1 - 2006 A1 - David E Bloom A1 - Canning, David A1 - Moore, Michael A1 - Song, Younghwan KW - Expectations KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - We explore the proposition that expected longevity affects retirement decisions and accumulated wealth using micro data drawn from the Health and Retirement Study for the United States. We use data on a person's subjective probability of survival to age 75 as a proxy for their prospective lifespan. In order to control for the presence of measurement error and focal points in responses, as well as reverse causality, we instrument subjective survival probabilities using information on current age, or age at death, of the respondent's parents. Our estimates indicate that increased subjective probabilities of survival result in increased household wealth among couples, with no effect on the length of the working life. These findings are consistent with the view that retirement decisions are driven by institutional constraints and incentives and that a longer expected lifespan leads to increased wealth accumulation. JF - NBER Working Paper PB - National Bureau of Economic Research CY - Washington, D.C. U4 - Subjective Probabilities of Survival/Wealth Accumulation/Retirement Planning ER - TY - RPRT T1 - The Effect of Unfolding Brackets on the Quality of Wealth Data in HRS Y1 - 2006 A1 - Juster, F. Thomas A1 - Cao, Honggao A1 - Michael M. Perry A1 - Mick P. Couper KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - A characteristic feature of survey data on household wealth is the high incidence of missing data roughly one in three respondents who report owning an asset are unable or unwilling to provide an estimate of the exact amount of their holding. A partial solution to that problem is to devise a series of questions that put the respondent s holdings into a quantitative range (less than x, more than x, or what?). These quantitative ranges are called unfolding brackets, and they represent a survey innovation that aims to improve the quality of wealth data by substituting range data for completely missing data. In this paper, we examine the effect of unfolding brackets on the quality of HRS wealth data. Special attention is given to the impact of unfolding bracket entry points on the distribution of asset holdings in HRS 1998. Although there is a small positive relationship between mean asset holdings and entry point, there are many cases where that relationship does not hold. In general, our conclusion is that entry point bias problems are not a major concern in the evaluation of quality in the 1998 HRS wealth data. PB - The University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center U4 - Assets/unfolding bracket design/Wealth ER - TY - THES T1 - The Effects of Private Pension Types on Older American Workers Portfolio Decisions and the Role of Health Measures in Understanding Expected Longevity Y1 - 2006 A1 - Ni, Huan KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Pensions AB - Private pensions are regarded as the most important source of retirement income other than Social Security. Previous studies have found significant effects of pensions on individual decisions regarding wealth accumulation, labor supply, and retirement income security. However, few studies have investigated the effects of pension on individuals portfolio choices. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a panel data set of Older Americans. my study is one of the first to investigate pension effects on older American workers portfolio choices by differentiating Defined-Benefit (DB) pensions from Defined-Contribution (DC) pensions. I first investigate how pension types affect individual stock market participation by performing a two-step procedure. Without differentiating between pension types, pension has been found to have a positive effect on stock investments. My results of both cross-sectional and panel analysis, after correcting for sample selection, and controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, show that compared to holding a DB pension, holding DC pensions not only decreases an individuals probability of participating in the stock market, but also leads to less investments in stocks after stock market entry. Secondly, I test pension type effects on older workers investment decisions in individual retirement accounts (IRAs), over which individuals have full control. Panel analysis shows that individuals with DC pensions are more likely to hold IRAs compared to those who have DBs. I also find that individuals have rather consistent investment patterns within their pension and IRA accounts. In order to better understand how individual expected longevity evolves over time, which can affect Older Americans investment planning horizon, we propose to use the self-reported health change as a direct measure of health flows in empirical models. Our results show that after controlling for both subjective and objective measures of health status and unobserved heterogeneity in reporting, self-reported health changes are a more appropriate measure of health dynamics than those used in earlier studies. PB - State University of New York at Stony Brook VL - Ph. D. IS - AAT 3448274 N1 - ISBN 9781124539911 U4 - Stock market JO - The Effects of Private Pension Types on Older American Workers Portfolio Decisions and the Role of Health Measures in Understanding Expected Longevity ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on Health and Household Finances Y1 - 2006 A1 - Salm, Martin KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This dissertation consists of three essays on the economics of health and household finances. The first essay investigates how subjective mortality expectations and heterogeneity in time and risk preferences affect the consumption and saving behaviors of the elderly. This study uses data on information about preferences and subjective mortality expectations from the Health and Retirement Study merged with detailed consumption data from two waves of the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey. The main results are: (1) consumption and saving choices vary with subjective mortality rates and reported time and risk preferences in a way that is consistent with the life cycle model; and (2) there is substantial heterogeneity in the estimated time discount rates and risk aversion parameters. The second essay examines the effect of job loss on health for near elderly employees. It uses longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study. Job loss is a major cause of economic insecurity for working age individuals, and can cause a reduction in income and loss of health insurance. To control for possible reverse causality, this study focuses on people who were laid off for an exogenous reason - the closure of their previous employers' business. This study finds no causal effect of exogenous job loss on various measures of health, which suggests that poor health of the unemployed can be explained by reverse causality. Instrumental variables regressions are used to estimate the effect of loss of health insurance, loss of income, and re-employment on health, and again there are no statistically significant effects. The third essay examines the welfare effects of tax subsidies for insurance premiums in a model of an insurance market with private information. This study finds that any second-best equilibrium can be achieved for some rate of a proportional premium subsidy. These second-best outcomes can typically not be achieved in a private insurance market without subsidies. This result suggests that subsidies for health insurance contributions, such as the tax deduction for employers' health insurance contribution in the United States, can mitigate the effects of adverse selection in health insurance markets. PB - Duke University U4 - financial resources JO - Essays on Health and Household Finances ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Enhancing the Quality of Data on Income and Wealth Y1 - 2005 A1 - Cao, Honggao A1 - Daniel H. Hill A1 - Juster, F. Thomas A1 - Michael M. Perry KW - Income KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - Over the last decade or so, a substantial effort has gone into the design of a series of methodological investigations aimed at enhancing the quality of survey data on income and wealth. These investigations have largely been conducted at the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, and have mainly involved two longitudinal surveys: the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), with a first wave beginning in 1992 and continued thereafter every other year through 2004; and the Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) Study, begun in 1993 and continued in 1995 and 1998, then in every other year through 2004. This provides and overview of the main studies and summarizes what has been learned about correcting longitudinal inconsistencies that arise. PB - The University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center UR - http://www.mrrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/papers/ U4 - Assets/income/Methodology ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The Economic Consequences of a Husband's Death: Evidence from the HRS and AHEAD JF - Social Security Bulletin Y1 - 2004 A1 - Purvi Sevak A1 - David R Weir A1 - Robert J. Willis KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This article examines the economic status of older widowed women in the 1990s using the Health and Retirement Study. Widowhood remains an important risk factor for transition into poverty, although somewhat less so than 20 years ago. Despite increased labor force participation rates among women and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) reforms, widows live with lower household earnings, pension income, and wealth than do married women. Women widowed at younger ages are at greatest risk for economic hardship after widowhood and their situation declines with the duration of widowhood. We also find that women in households that are least prepared financially for widowhood are at greatest risk of husband's death, because of the strong relationship between mortality and wealth. PB - 65 VL - 65 UR - https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v65n3/v65n3p31.html IS - 3 U4 - Widowhood/Economic Status ER - TY - THES T1 - The Effects of Mortgage Debt on Assets and Total Resources among Near-Retirement Households Y1 - 2004 A1 - Palmer, Lance KW - Housing KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This study investigated the long-term relation between household leverage through the use of mortgages, and changes in household wealth using the theoretical framework of the life cycle income hypothesis. This study used the 1992 through 2002 waves of the Health and Retirement Study. The characteristics of leveraged and unleveraged households were compared. The relation between household leverage and changes in assets and total resources over the period was modeled using robust regression analysis. Retained or incurred mortgage debt during the study period, relative to not having mortgage debt, had a consistent negative effect on changes in assets and total resources. However, for high-income and more risk-tolerant households, mortgage debt was beneficial and enhanced increases in assets and total resources. Implications for consumers, financial professionals, educators, and tax policymakers were drawn from the results of the study. PB - Utah State University CY - United States -- Utah UR - https://search.proquest.com/openview/a713eff33873142dc139d2912574e6df/1?cbl=18750&diss=y&pq-origsite=gscholar U4 - Home economics JO - The Effects of Mortgage Debt on Assets and Total Resources among Near-Retirement Households ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Effects of Stock Market Fluctuations on the Adequacy of Retirement Wealth Accumulation Y1 - 2004 A1 - Engen, Eric M. A1 - William G. Gale A1 - Cori E. Uccello KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This paper examines the relation between fluctuations in the aggregate value of equities and the adequacy of households saving for retirement. We find that many and perhaps most households appear to be saving adequate amounts for retirement, but almost no link between stock values and the adequacy of retirement saving. Historical variation in equity values and ownership correlates poorly with historical variation in the adequacy of saving. Even a simulated 40 percent decline in stocks has little effect on the adequacy of saving. The results occur because equities are concentrated among households with significant amounts of other wealth. JF - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College Working Papers PB - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College CY - Boston UR - https://crr.bc.edu/working-papers/effects-of-stock-market-fluctuations-on-the-adequacy-of-retirement-wealth-accumulation/ U4 - Stock Market/Retirement Wealth ER - TY - THES T1 - Essays on Elderly Labor Force Participation, Pension Structure, and Partial Retirement T2 - Economics Y1 - 2004 A1 - Sharon Lynn Hermes KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Healthcare KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - Increasingly, older Americans are postponing retirement or re-entering the workforce after retirement. This research examines the effect of pension structure changes and the different ways older workers partially retire by transitioning from full time work to part-time work, by changing jobs, or by returning to work from full retirement. Defined contribution pension growth makes retirement income increasingly tied to financial markets, implying that older workers need to postpone retirement in recessions, precisely when jobs are scarce. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, a difference-in-differences analysis comparing older workers with defined benefit and defined contribution pensions before and after the stock market crash in 2000 reveals that the probability of retirement for people aged 63-64 with only defined contribution pensions fell by over 34 percentage points from 1998 to 2002. As men and women work longer, partial retirement has become an important option for older workers. Studies suggest that workers in the private sector cannot work fewer hours as they age on their career job because defined benefit pensions restrict inservice distributions prior to the plan's normal retirement age. Using an instrumental variables regression, I find little evidence ERISA regulated defined benefit pensions cause partial retirees to change employers prior to attaining the normal retirement age. However, many older workers not affected by ERISA also change jobs in partial retirement, which suggests the presence of constraints not identified in the model or that changing employers is in itself desirable as people age. Although partial retirement usually refers to workers voluntarily transitioning from full-time work to complete retirement, health or financial problems may be causing these changes. I find partial retirees are less healthy than similar full-time workers and report their health constrains work ability. In addition, over 26% of partial retirees return to work after retirement and hourly wages of partial retirees (previously retired) fall substantially more than hourly wages of partial retirees who transitioned directly from full-time work. Regression analysis indicates retirees with defined benefit pensions rarely return to work. Women, though return to work if their spouse's health deteriorates, while men re-enter the workforce if their spouse works. JF - Economics PB - University of Notre Dame VL - Doctor of Philosophy UR - https://curate.nd.edu/show/2z10wq0045w U4 - Gerontology ER - TY - RPRT T1 - The Economic Consequences of Marital Disruption for Pre-Retirement Age African-American, Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White Women Y1 - 2003 A1 - Jacqueline L. Angel A1 - Cynthia J. Buckley A1 - Ronald J. Angel A1 - Maren A. Jimenez KW - Adult children KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Women and Minorities PB - Population Association of America CY - Minneapolis, MN U4 - Marital Dissolution/Women/Economic Status ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The Effects of Health Events on the Economic Status of Married Couples JF - The Journal of Human Resources Y1 - 2003 A1 - Stephen Wu KW - Adult children KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - This paper uses measures of exogenous health shocks to identify the different channels through which changes in health conditions affect income, wealth, and consumption behavior. The results indicate that serious health conditions have strong effects on household wealth, but that the effects for women are larger and more significant than the effects for men. The source of the asymmetry arises from the fact that general living expenses increase when wives become seriously ill, while for husbands, health shocks do not affect these expenditures. PB - 38 VL - 38 IS - 1 U4 - Health/Retirement/Labor Force/Marriage/Economic Status ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Empirical Validation of HRS Pension Wealth Measures Y1 - 2003 A1 - Susann Rohwedder KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - On average, pension wealth amounts to a major fraction of household wealth with considerable variance at the individual level. Empirical analysis of household behavior therefore ought to account for it, but often does not, because of lack of appropriate data. The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) allows computing two measures of pension wealth: one derived from the self-reports and one that uses information on pension plan rules obtained from employer-provided documents. This study assesses the reliability of these two pension wealth measures on the basis of their explanatory power in three examples of economic frameworks. The analysis demonstrates that in straightforward analysis both measures may be thought of as reasonably powerful covariates. Yet, taking into account implications from the way the measures are constructed leads to quite different conclusions which favor the self-reports in empirical analysis. PB - RAND N1 - ProCite field 8 : RAND and University College London U4 - Pension Wealth ER - TY - JOUR T1 - An Examination of the Impact of Health on Wealth Depletion of the Elderly JF - The Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences Y1 - 2003 A1 - Jinkook Lee A1 - Hyungsoo Kim KW - Demographics KW - Healthcare KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - Objectives. This study investigates the effects of new health events and existing health conditions on wealth depletion in elderly individuals. Methods. A model deriving from life-cycle theory is proposed and estimated using Waves 1 and 2 of the Asset and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old (AHEAD) data set. Results. Both new health events and existing health conditions significantly influence wealth depletion of elders, but their impacts differ across marital status. Whereas an occurrence of new health events brought wealth depletion of elders in married households, having existing chronic health conditions was associated with wealth depletion of elders in single households. Discussion. Poor health, both a new health event and existing chronic conditions, leads to considerable wealth depletion in elderly individuals. Considering the significant impacts of health on wealth, the public needs to be better informed of potential health events in later life and the associated financial burden. Additional health insurance plays an important role in preventing elders from financial hardship. PB - 58B VL - 58B UR - http://psychsoc.gerontologyjournals.org/ IS - 2 U4 - Wealth/Elderly/Health Care Costs ER - TY - RPRT T1 - The Economic Consequences of Being Uninsured Y1 - 2002 A1 - Helen G Levy KW - Medicare/Medicaid/Health Insurance KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - I estimate the impact of being diagnosed with a serious new health condition (cancer, diabetes, heart attack, chronic lung disease, or stroke) on household wealth, food consumption and total household income for households with and without health insurance at baseline, using data from the first four waves of the Health and Retirement Study. I find that health shocks do not have a significant effect on consumption; households are able to smooth the impact of these shocks. Whether they deplete wealth in order to do so is not entirely clear; the estimated effect of a health shock on wealth is large (about $28,000) for both insured and uninsured households, but is not statistically significant. The proportional effect on wealth is estimated to be larger for uninsured households (a drop of 20 percent) than for insured households (a drop of about 2 percent), but again, neither effect is significantly different from zero. Health shocks reduce household income by about $9,000 and reduce the probability of work by about ten percentage points; the labor supply response to a shock is about the same whether or not a household has insurance. There is no evidence that the uninsured face significantly higher economic risks than the insured in the event of a health shock. JF - Economic Reserach Initiative on the Uninsured Working Paper Series PB - University of Chicago UR - http://rwjf-eriu.org/pdf/wp12.pdf U4 - Economic Status/Health Insurance Coverage ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Education and Investment Behavior in the Family: A Study of Health Human Capital in Middle Age Y1 - 2002 A1 - Ippolito, Richard A. KW - Demographics KW - Net Worth and Assets PB - George Mason University School of Law U4 - Education/Human Capital ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Ensuring Time-Series Consistency in Estimates of Income from Wealth Y1 - 2002 A1 - Juster, F. Thomas A1 - Joseph P. Lupton A1 - Cao, Honggao KW - Income KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets PB - Ann Arbor, MI, The University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center U4 - Longitudinal Design/Income/Wealth ER - TY - RPRT T1 - The Effect of Federal Estate Tax Policy on Charitable Contributions Y1 - 2001 A1 - Greene, Pamela A1 - Robert McClelland KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Public Policy PB - Congressional Budget Office U4 - Assets/Tax Policy/Taxes ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Effects of Alcohol Consumption on Disability Among the Near Elderly: A Longitudinal Analysis JF - The Milbank Quarterly Y1 - 2001 A1 - Ostermann, Jan A1 - Frank A Sloan KW - Disabilities KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Social Security AB - In this study the 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1998 waves of the Health and Retirement Study were used as a way to ascertain the validity of government policy changes in transfer benefits based on alcohol consumption and disability. Are heavy drinkers more likely than abstainers or moderate drinkers to be disabled and receiving transfers from SSDI or SSI? (cross-sectional analysis). How have the 1996 policy revisions changed the amount of government transfers given to the disabled who consume alcohol and the ease in receiving such receipts? (longitudinal analysis). The authors discuss many ways in which alcohol use may effect a persons body and ability to complete tasks, as well as, some ways in which preferences toward alcohol consumption can affect ones economic and financial decisions. At wave 4 in 1998 they find there is a strong correlation between rates of disability and the drinking behavior/history of drinking problems reported in Wave 1 of 1992. However, moderate drinkers were the least likely to be disabled in 1998 and the abstainers were the most likely. At the same time though, those that reported being heavy drinkers, had the most limitations on their abilities and were the most likely to be receiving SSDI or SSI transfers. The odds of death between two years (time interval between waves) was insignificant, but those who drank heavily reported more limitations at each subsequent wave. The change in policy had practically no effect on number of people collecting SSDI/SSI. Heavy and problem drinkers were less numerous among those receiving SSDI/SSI after the policy changes, but the data in this study were unable to pinpoint the specific reasons for this outcome. PB - 79 VL - 79 IS - 4 U4 - Health Behaviors/Health Status/Economic Status/Alcohol Drinking/Supplemental Security Income/Disability/Disability ER - TY - CHAP T1 - Early Retirement Windows T2 - Forecasting Retirement Needs and Retirement Wealth Y1 - 2000 A1 - Charles Brown ED - Olivia S. Mitchell ED - Hammond, B. ED - Rappaport, A. KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction JF - Forecasting Retirement Needs and Retirement Wealth PB - Univ. of Pennsylvania Press CY - Philadelphia UR - https://pensionresearchcouncil.wharton.upenn.edu/publications/books/forecasting-retirement-needs-and-retirement-wealth/ N1 - ProCite field 8 : eds U4 - Retirement/Early out Windows/Wealth/Retirement Planning JO - Early Retirement Windows ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Elderly Asset Management and Health: An Empirical Analysis Y1 - 2000 A1 - Feinstein, Jonathan S. A1 - Ho, Chih-Chin KW - Adult children KW - Demographics KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - We present models of asset management by the elderly. We focus on saving, spend-down of assets, and gift-giving, and the influence of health on these precesses. We also study the evolution of elderly health and the impact of economic variables on health outcomes. We present results from estimating our models using data from waves one and two of the AHEAD dataset. Our model of asset management links elderly decisions about saving, spend-down of assets, and gift-giving in a system of equations. We divide households for which head and partner (if present) are in poor health and those for which head and partner are in good health; our specification allows for differences in health to affect both the average level of economic outcomes and the marginal effects of income and wealth on the outcomes. We also include in our model a set of sociodemographic control variables. Our model of health outcomes links health in the preceding period to health in the current period, allowing for three outcomes good health, poor health, or death. In our models of health outcomes we include variables measuring health in the previous period, wealth, age, education, and control variables. Our main results are the following. First, results for gift-giving suggest that at least some elderly do plan their estate transfer - those that have established trust funds or for which households assets exceed the estate tax filling threshold have a significantly greater propensity to give gifts. Second, the average level of gift-giving is lower for those in poor health, but the marginal effect of increasing wealth on gift-giving is much greater. This result is important in showing the ways in which health can interact with economic variables in influencing economic decision-making. Third, income is an important determinant of saving and spend-down. Fourth, other things equal, households that save are also more likely to give gifts. Fifth, sudden changes in family structure and health are associated with changing patters of economic behavior - most especially, becoming a widow or widower is associated with a significant increase in the likelihood both of spending out of assets and of making gifts. Finally, variables related to children have less effect on propensity to give gifts than expected - the only variable that has a significant effect is the number of children for which parents cannot provide income information, suggesting that the quality of the relationship between parents and children is important for gift-giving. JF - NBER Working Paper PB - The National Bureau of Economic Research CY - Cambridge, MA UR - https://www.nber.org/papers/w7814 U4 - Assets/Health Status/Economic Status/Family Structure/Basic Demographics ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Employer Provided Pension Data in the NLS Mature Women's Survey and in the Health and Retirement Study JF - Research in Labor Economics Y1 - 2000 A1 - Alan L Gustman A1 - Thomas L. Steinmeier KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Income KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Pensions KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction PB - 19 VL - 19 N1 - RDA 1996-005 U4 - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution/Economics of the Elderly/Economics of Gender/Retirement/Retirement Policies/Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits/Private Pensions/Pension Wealth/Pension ER - TY - CHAP T1 - Evaluating Pension Entitlements T2 - Forecasting Retirement Needs and Retirement Wealth Y1 - 2000 A1 - Alan L Gustman A1 - Olivia S. Mitchell A1 - Andrew A. Samwick A1 - Thomas L. Steinmeier ED - Olivia S. Mitchell ED - Hammond, B. ED - Rappaport, A. KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Pensions KW - Public Policy JF - Forecasting Retirement Needs and Retirement Wealth PB - University of Pennsylvania Press CY - Philadelphia UR - https://pensionresearchcouncil.wharton.upenn.edu/publications/books/forecasting-retirement-needs-and-retirement-wealth/ N1 - RDA 1996-005; Revision of Pension Research Council Working Paper 98-20 ProCite field 8 : eds. U4 - Pensions/Entitlements/Wealth ER - TY - MGZN T1 - Elder Depression Linked to Disease Y1 - 1999 A1 - Unattributed KW - Demographics KW - Disabilities KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This article describes the findings of a University of Michigan study (based on AHEAD data) that examined the "complex" relationship among depression, disease, and disability. Data from the first two waves of the AHEAD study was used to evaluate the link between disease and depressive symptoms. Results showed that older people who smoked or had multiple symptoms of depression were much more likely to develope a new disease within two years than those without these symptoms. JF - Parent Care Advisor JO - Elder Depression Linked to Disease ER - TY - JOUR T1 - An Empirical Analysis of the Social Security Disability Application, Appeal, and Award Process JF - Labour Economics Y1 - 1999 A1 - Hugo Benítez-Silva A1 - Buchinsky, Moshe A1 - Hiu-Man Chan A1 - Rust, John A1 - Sheidvasser, Sofia KW - Disabilities KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Health Conditions and Status KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Social Security AB - This paper uses the first three waves of the HRS to provide an empirical analysis of the Social Security disability application, award, and appeal process. PB - 6 VL - 6 IS - 2 U4 - Economic Status/Labor/Health Status/Disability/Disability/Social Security ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Employer Provided Pension Data in the NLS Mature Women's Survey and in the Health and Retirement Study Y1 - 1999 A1 - Alan L Gustman A1 - Thomas L. Steinmeier KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Income KW - Methodology KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Pensions KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - We compute pension wealth from employer provided pension plan descriptions matched to respondent surveys to the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women (NLS-MW) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). These calculations provide detailed information on the level and distribution of pension wealth and a variety of incentives from pensions. Differences between the pensions of men and women are largely explained by differences in earnings. However, there also are differences in the shapes of the pension accrual profiles of defined benefit plans that are likely to reflect tenure of women. Pension coverage is lower in the NLS-MW than in the HRS. As a result, wealth is lower in the NLS-MW than in the HRS. But the difference in coverage is not due to the effects of pension matching. Pension values for covered respondents are similar between the NLS-MW and HRS surveys. Systematic differences between the surveys in the rate at which pensions were matched do not have a major effect on findings as to the levels and distributions of pension wealth between the surveys. PB - National Bureau of Economics Research U4 - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution/Economics of the Elderly/Economics of Gender/Retirement/Retirement Policies/Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits/Private Pensions/Pension Wealth/Pension ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Evidence of Risk Aversion in the Health and Retirement Study Y1 - 1999 A1 - Bajtelsmit, Vickie L. KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Risk Taking KW - Women and Minorities AB - This study reviews the literature on individual risk aversion and investment allocation. Relative risk aversion is estimated using the 1994 wave of the Health and Retirement Study, a large nationally representative sample of households nearing retirement. After controlling for age, income, dependents, and other demographic characteristics, the results confirm earlier findings of decreasing relative risk aversion. Single women are found to be relatively more risk averse than married couples. Risky portfolio allocation is significantly lower for older households, for those with lower educational levels, and for black households, when housing is not included in the definition of wealth. Examination of the wealth accumulation in this sample of households indicates excessive levels of debt and insufficient savings are common. A smaller sample of individuals completed an experimental component of the survey designed to measure risk aversion with respect to gain or loss of income. The respondents self-professed risk aversion hasa positive impact on risky allocation but the significance level is low. PB - Colorado State University U4 - Net Worth/Risk Aversion/Investments/Minorities ER - TY - CHAP T1 - Effects of Pensions on Household Wealth Accumulation: Implications of the Shift Toward Defined Contribution Plans T2 - Living With Defined Contribution Pensions Y1 - 1998 A1 - William G. Gale A1 - Milano, Joseph ED - Olivia S. Mitchell ED - Scheiber, S. KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Pensions AB - Pension wealth constitutes a sizable portion of households' retirement resources. Close to half of civilian nonagricultural workers participate in pension plans.' Future income flows from private pensions accounted for 20 percent of the wealth of households aged 65-69 in 1991 (Poterba, Venti, and Wise 1994, table 1). Thus the relation between pensions and other household wealth can have important implications for policy issues, such as how to raise the saving rate or assure adequate saving for retirement, as well as for more fundamental issues, such as how people make economic decisions about the future. JF - Living With Defined Contribution Pensions PB - Univ. of Pennsylvania Press and Pension Research Council UR - https://pensionresearchcouncil.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/0-8122-3439-1-6.pdf N1 - ProCite field 6 : In ProCite field 8 : eds. U4 - 401(k) participation and balances/Wealth Accumulation JO - Effects of Pensions on Household Wealth Accumulation: Implications of the Shift Toward Defined Contribution Plans ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Effects of Pensions on Savings: Analysis with Data from the Health and Retirement Study Y1 - 1998 A1 - Alan L Gustman A1 - Thomas L. Steinmeier KW - Adult children KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Income KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Pensions KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction KW - Social Security AB - This paper examines the composition and distribution of total wealth for a cohort of 51- to 61-year olds from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), and the role of pensions in forming retirement wealth. Pension coverage is widespread, covering two-thirds of households and accounting for one-quarter of accumulated wealth. Social security benefits account for another quarter of total wealth. As calculated from earnings records, the present discounted value of social security benefits is less than the present value of taxes paid. Earlier than many expected, social security is already a poor investment on average for this cohort on the verge of retirement. When pensions and social security are included, wealth accumulated by the HRS population to date is substantial. At their expected retirement date, using only the wealth accumulated by their mid-fifties, the HRS household with median replacement rate could finance a fixed, nominal two-thirds joint and survivor annuity replacing 79 percent of last earnings, and a real annuity replacing 52 percent of last earnings. Replacement rates for median earners are higher. Additional savings made over the seven years remaining until retirement will raise those replacement rates by about a fifth. When measured against a standard of adequacy based on average yearly earnings over the worklife, with adjustments made for the absence of preretirement savings, children, taxes, work-related expenses and other factors, these replacement rates appear adequate. Lifetime earnings are measured for each individual in the HRS from social security earnings records augmented by self-reported earnings histories. When pensions and social security are counted in total wealth, the ratio of wealth to lifetime earnings declines from very high levels in the bottom ten percent of the earnings distribution, remains at roughly 40 percent from the 25th through 95th percentile of the lifetime earnings distribution, and then falls to 32 percent for those in the top five percent of the earnings distribution. This result is consistent with the predictions of a simple, stripped-down life-cycle model. Also consistent is a finding that the ratio of wealth to lifetime earnings is no higher for those with pensions than for those without pensions. However, heterogeneity is quite important. Real estate and business wealth are a larger share of total wealth for those without pensions, reflecting the importance of self-employment in wealth accumulation. Multivariate regressions relating total wealth to pension coverage and pension value, which standardize for sources of heterogeneity, suggest that pensions cause very limited displacement of other wealth, if any. Pensions add to total wealth by at least half the value of the pension, and in most estimates by a good deal more. These findings are not consistent with a simple life-cycle explanation for savings. They also raise questions about whether pensions are fundamentally a tax avoidance device, allowing substitution of pension for nonpension savings. JF - NBER Working Paper PB - NBER CY - Cambridge UR - https://www.nber.org/papers/w6681.pdf N1 - RDA 1996-005 ProCite field 8 : Dartmouth College and NBER; TX Tech U U4 - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution/Retirement/Retirement Policies/Social Security and Public Pensions/Nonwage Labor/Private Pensions/Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis/Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis/Distribution/Households/Pension/Retirement/Saving/Social Security/Wealth ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Empirical Research on How the Elderly Handle Their Estates JF - Generations Y1 - 1996 A1 - Colleen O'Connor KW - Adult children KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - This article examines past research for its insight into the legacies that people leave and the personal preferences they hold for the distribution of their estates. For the most part, the findings of the research examined are very intuitive. Most people do not have wills. Those that do are generally older, wealthier, more educated, and tend to give the bulk of their estates to spouses and children. In order to provide a complete picture of legacy, future research must take into account modern day relationships and lifestyles. PB - 20 VL - 20 UR - https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44877942.pdf IS - 3 U4 - Wills/Economic Status/Family transfers, structure/Family Relations ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Economic Status Measures in the Health and Retirement Study JF - Journal of Human Resources Y1 - 1995 A1 - Marilyn Moon A1 - Juster, F. Thomas KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Other AB - Variables measuring economic status represent a straightforward but crucial part of Round 1 of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). In addition to studies focusing directly on the economic well-being of this cohort of the population, the economic status variables are likely to be inputs into other analyses that focus on retirement and savings behavior, on variations in health status, on intrafamily transfers and support, and on poverty status. As a first look at these data, this paper has several modest goals: to offer a flavor for the major economic status variables on the HRS, to indicate some preliminary analysis of the quality of the data, and to take a preliminary look at the interrelationships among economic status measures like income and wealth and other important variables such as health status, pension rights, and health insurance coverage. PB - 30 VL - 30 IS - 0 Suppl. N1 - ProCite field 3 : U MI Survey Research Center; Urban Institute U4 - Economic Status/Distribution/Wages and Compensation ER -