This paper uses data on anticipated bequests from two waves of the Health and Retirement Study and the Asset and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old (AHEAD), and on actual bequests from AHEAD. Actual bequests were measured in exit interviews given by proxy respondents for 774 AHEAD respondents who...

According to the life-cycle model, mortality risk will influence both retirement and the desire to annuitize wealth. We estimate the effect of subjective survival probabilities on retirement and on the claiming of Social Security benefits because delayed claiming is equivalent to the purchase of...

This paper proposes and analyzes a life-cycle model of consumption by couples. The model is considerably more complicated than the standard model for singles because it has to account for the welfare of a surviving spouse. The determinants of consumption are the survival paths of each spouse,...

The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and a number of other major household surveys use unfolding brackets to reduce item nonresponse. However, the initial entry point into a bracketing sequence is likely to act as an anchor or point of reference to the respondent: The distribution of responses...

This paper reviews and analyzes forecasts of the Social Security trust funds, government spending, medical expenditures, and other elements of aggregate income and spending. According to these forecasts, the aging of the U.S. population will require some increases in taxes to support the...

Most older workers retire completely from full-time work with no intervening spell of part-time work. This is incompatible with a model of retirement in which tastes for work gradually shift with age toward leisure and hours may be freely chosen. A survey of institutional arrangements such as...

The objective of the work reported in this paper is to find if the consumption data from the six waves of the Retirement History Survey are consistent with the life cycle hypothesis of consumption and to test the importance of a bequest motive for saving. The 12 data items which are used cover...

This is the first part of a three-part paper on research on the elderly. The objective of the paper is to present issues and research results in three areas: economic status, retirement, and consumption and saving. This part covers background material on demographic change, living arrangements,...

The objective of the paper is to find empirically whether husbands and wives tend to retire at the same time, and to give an explanation of the findings. Similarity of retirement dates could be caused by similarity of tastes (assortative mating), by economic variables, or by the complimentarity...