We describe the history of state pension policy in the UK since 1948 and calculate summary measures of the generosity of the system over time and the degree to which the it created implicit taxes on, or subsidies to, work at older ages. The time series of these measures, calculated separately...

In this paper, we modeled several types of housing transitions of the elderly in two countries -- Britain and the United States. One important form of these transitions involves downsizing of housing consumption, the importance of which among older households is still debated. This downsizing...

Looking across many diseases, average health among mature men is much worse in America compared to England. Second, there exists a steep negative health gradient for men in both countries where men at the bottom of the economic hierarchy are in much worse health than those at the top. This...

This paper investigates the role of pain in determining self-reported work disability in the US, the UK and The Netherlands. Even if identical questions are asked, cross-country differences in reported work disability remain substantial. In the US and the Netherlands, respondent evaluations of...

In this paper, we attempt to explain differences between the US and UK household wealth distributions, with an emphasis on the quite different porfolios held in stock and housing equities in the two countries. As a proportion of their total wealth, British households hold relatively small...

Recent studies have explored the possibility that limited participation in asset markets, and the stock market in particular, might explain the lack of correspondence between the sample moments of the Intertemporal Marginal Rate of Substitution and asset returns. We estimate ownership...

In this paper we document significantly steeper declines in nondurable expenditures in the UK compared to the US, in spite of income paths being similar. We explore several possible causes, including different employment paths, housing ownership and expenses, levels and paths of health status,...

This paper estimates how much additional work capacity there might be among men and women aged between 55 and 74 in the United Kingdom, given their health, and how this has evolved over the last decade. The objective is not to suggest how much older people should work but rather to shed light on...

This paper investigates the effects of spatial housing price risk on housing choices over the first half of the life-cycle. Housing price risk can be substantial but, unlike other risky assets which people can avoid, most people want to eventually own their home thereby creating an insurance...

This paper examines to what extent differences in employment rates across those in better and worse health in the UK can be explained by the availability of publicly-funded disability insurance and the financial incentives provided by other retirement income schemes. Using an option value...