Distingiishing "spot" versus "contract" views of the labor market is of critical importance to a host of economic issues ranging from wage flexibility over the business cycle to firm financial valuation. The structural features of U.S. private pension plans permit surprisingly strong inferences...

The Federal Government is actively involved in encouraging the formation and growth of private pensions and in regulating their behavior. The primary form of encouragement is the government's tax subsidization of pensions. A primary attribute of pension plan provisions is an implicit tax on...

The proportion of workers covered by pensions has increased very substantially over the past two or three decades, and in particular the number of older workers with pensions continues to increase. During the same period,and especially in the past decade, the labor force participation of older...

The provisions of the pension plan in a large corporation are described in detail. The implications of the provisions are indicated by pension accrual profiles. These profiles are set forth, together with standard age-earnings and Social Security accrual profiles, in the form of life-time budget...

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...

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...

We consider how age-health profiles differ by demographic characteristics such as education, race, and ethnicity. A key feature of the analysis is the joint estimation of health and mortality to correct for the effect of mortality selection on observed age-health profiles. The model also allows...

Social Security benefits are the most important component of the income of a large fraction of older Americans. A significant fraction of persons approach the end of life with few financial assets and no home equity, relying almost entirely on Social Security benefits for support. Whether...