This chapter examines the labor supply effects of social insurance programs. We argue that this topic deserves separate treatment from the rest of the labor supply literature because individuals may be imperfectly informed as to the rules of the programs and because key parameters are likely to...

We study a fundamental reform of the public Disability Insurance (DI) system in Germany. Effective 2001, cohorts born after 1960 are no longer eligible for "occupational DI." Occupational DI (ODI) implies benefit eligibility when health shocks prevent employees from working in their previous...

Even though the Disability System in Spain is designed to allow partially disabled individuals to combine the receipt of the benefits with a job, their employment rates have remained very low since 1996. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the results of an employment promotion policy...

There is much variation in the physical requirements across occupations, giving rise to great differences in later-life productivity, disability risk, and the value of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). In this paper, I look at how such differences across occupations affect initial...

Previous OECD reports have concluded that disability policy has changed substantially in many OECD countries in recent decades. Nevertheless, large employment gaps remain between people with a disability and those without. This paper builds on earlier OECD analysis and recent extensions to...

We test the hypothesis that exits from the labor market for pre-retirement individuals in Spain respond mainly to economic conditions and to incentives by analyzing two effects. First, we test the existence of spillover effects from a reform of the old-age pension system on transitions from...

The German government introduced compulsory accident insurance for industrial firms in 1884. This insurance scheme was one of the main pillars of Bismarck’s famous social insurance system. The accident-insurance system achieved only one of its intended goals: it successfully compensated...