This is the introduction and summary to the sixth phase of an ongoing project on Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World. The first phase described the retirement incentives inherent in plan provisions and documented the strong relationship across countries between social...

This paper presents new evidence on the potential importance of 401(K) assets in contributing to the retirement resources of future retirees. We use data on past 401(k) participation rates by age and imcome decile, along with information on average 401(k) contribution rates, to project the...

The strong link between health insurance and employment in the United States may cause workers to delay retirement until they become eligible for Medicare at age 65. However, some employers extend health insurance benefits to their retirees, and individuals who are eligible for such retiree...

Proposed changes in the U.S. Social Security provisions include increasing the normal retirement age from 65 to 67 and changing from 3% to 8% the increase in benefits for each year that retirement is delayed after normal retirement. The paper considers the interaction between these changes and...

Retirement saving accounts, particularly employer-provided 401(k) plans rapidly in the last decade. More than forty percent of workers are currently eligible for these" plans, and over seventy percent of eligibles participate in these plans. The substantial and" ongoing accumulation of assets in...

The private pension structure in the United States, once dominated by defined benefit (DB) plans, is currently divided between defined contribution (DC) and DB plans. Wealth accumulation in DC plans depends on the participant's contribution behavior and on financial market returns, while...

Health and longevity have increased substantially over the last 50 years, yet the labor force participation of older men has declined in most developed countries. We use mortality as a measure of health to assess the capacity to work at older ages in 12 OECD countries. For a given level of...

This is the introduction and summary to the fifth phase of an ongoing project on Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World. The first phase described the retirement incentives inherent in plan provisions and documented the strong relationship across countries between social...

The goal of this paper is to draw attention to the long lasting effect of education on economic outcomes. We use the relationship between education and two routes to early retirement – the receipt of Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and the early claiming of Social Security retirement...

In most data sets of labor force participation of the elderly, an empirical regularity that emerges is that retirement rates are particularly high at age 65. While there are numerous economic reasons why individuals may choose to retire at 65, empirical models that have attempted to explain the...