Identifying the effect of the financial incentives created by social security systems on the retirement behaviour of individuals requires exogenous variation in program parameters. In this paper we study the 1993 Australian Age Pension reform which increased the eligibility age for women to...

The purpose of this paper is to examine what key reform attempts during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies reveal about the wider possibilities for social policy change in the United States. Most particularly, why were Presidents Clinton and Bush able to achieve their goals in some...

Drawing on recent historical institutionalist scholarship, this paper explores the debates leading to the enactment of the Canada/Quebec Pension Plans (C/Q.P.P.) in 1965. More specifically, this analysis underlines the respective role of and the interaction between political institutions,...

This paper shows that, beyond the institutional stability of Social Security, changes in the private sector as well as the emergence of a new financial paradigm have transformed both the U.S. pension system and the political debate about its future. Although no major reform of Social Security...

The government of Canada is committed to closing the health status gap between First Nation’s (FN) and non-First Nation’s peoples in Canada. The government of Canada is also committed to evidenced-based policy making and accountability. To provide evidence of effective programming, it must...

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...

This paper evaluates the impact of the 1995-1998 Ontario welfare reforms on the standard of living among single mothers. I look at how different measures of single mothers’ consumption vary in response to transfer income shocks. Because welfare is a provincial responsibility in Canada, this...

The federal government has implemented an earned income tax credit – what it has called the Working Income Tax Benefit – in the 2007 Budget. Edmund Phelps has argued that the earned income tax credit in the United States should be replaced with an employment subsidy. This paper assesses the...

In 1975, 50 year-old Americans could expect to live slightly longer than their European counterparts. By 2005, American life expectancy at that age has diverged substantially compared to Europe. We find that this growing longevity gap is primarily the symptom of real declines in the health of...

The public economic burden of shifting trends in population health remains uncertain. Sustained increases in obesity, diabetes, and other diseases could reduce life expectancy – with a concomitant decrease in the public-sector’s annuity burden – but these savings may be offset by worsening...