Comparative health studies consistently find that Canadians on average are healthier than Americans. Comparing health status within and between Canada and the United States provides key insights into the distribution of inequalities in these two countries. Canada’s universal health care...

We look at the effect of the 2000 repeal of the earnings test above the normal retirement age on retirement expectations of workers in the Health and Retirement Study, aged 51 to 61 in 1992. For men, we find that those whose marginal wage rate increased when the earnings test was repealed, had...

We examine the effect of income inequality on individual self-rated health status in a pooled sample of 10 member states of the European Union using longitudinal data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) survey. Taking advantage of the longitudinal and cross-national nature of our...

The paper reviews evidence that suggests that, over the coming two decades, people are likely to stay in the work force at least five years longer, possibly by considerably more. The implications for policy are surprisingly large and surprisingly unrecognized. Recent trends, if extended into the...

This paper proposes a new approach to modeling heterogeneous human capital using task data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The key feature of the model is that it departs from the Roy model, which treats occupations as distinct categories, and conceives of occupations as bundles of...

This paper sheds light on the current state and the likely future development of Korea’s evolving pension system by analyzing it from a comparative perspective. It shows that, because of its many institutional layers, the Korean pension system could evolve into one of several different types...

This paper seeks to contribute to a forward-looking debate on possible reform options for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP). Even though it focuses on the CPP, most of its analysis applies to the QPP as well since the two programs are largely identical. This paper...

This paper examines how primitive skills associated with occupations are formed and rewarded in the labor market over the careers of men. The objective task complexity measurement from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles enables a more direct look into the primitive skills of workers. I show...

We explore the role of employer provided pensions on job mobility choices using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Defined benefit plans are found to have a significant negative effect on mobility. However, we find no significant evidence that the potential pension...

By all measures the private pension system in Canada is in difficulty. One estimate suggests that at the end of 2005 there were significant funding shortfalls in about three quarters of the traditional defined benefit pension plans that fall under federal jurisdiction in Canada. In order to...