To analyze the effect of health on work, many studies use a simple self-assessed health measure based upon a question such as "do you have an impairment or health problem limiting the kind or amount of work you can do?" A possible drawback of such a measure is the possibility that different...

Self-reported work disability is analyzed in the US and The Netherlands. The raw data show that Dutch respondents much more often report that they have a work limiting health problem than respondents in the US. The difference remains when controlling for demographic characteristics and observed...

The authors use a unique cross-country data set covering nearly 22,000 elderly individuals (age 50+) from 10 European Countries. Cross-country differences in the prevalence of obesity in older Europeans are substantial and exceed sociodemographic differentials in obesity. Obesity is strongly...

A positive relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and health, the so-called "health-wealth gradient", is repeatedly found in most industrialized countries with similar levels of health care technology and economic welfare. This study analyzes causality from health to wealth (health...

Euler equation estimation of intertemporal consumption models imposes heavy demands on data and identifiability conditions. For example, one typically needs panel data on consumption, assumptions on expectations, and a parameterization of preferences. The authors aim at reducing some of these...

Structural models explaining retirement decisions of individuals or households in an inter-temporal setting are typically hard to estimate using data on actual retirement decisions, because choice sets are complicated and uncertain and for a large part unobserved by the researcher. This paper...

In the experimental module of the AHEAD 1995 data, the sample is randomly split into respondents who get an open-ended question on the amount of total family consumption - with follow-up unfolding brackets (of the form: is consumption $X or more?) for those who answer "donÕt know" or "refuse" -...

Self-reported work disability is analyzed in the US, the UK and the Netherlands. Different wordings of the questions lead to different work disability rates. But even if identical questions are asked, crosscountry differences remain substantial. Respondent evaluations of work limitations of...

Many western industrialized countries face strong budgetary pressures due to the aging of the baby boom generations and the general trends toward earlier ages of retirement. The authors use the American PSID and the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) to explain differences in prevalence...

This paper investigates the role of pain in determining self-reported work disability in the U.S., the U.K. and The Netherlands. Even if identical questions are asked, cross-country differences in reported work disability remain substantial. In the U.S. and the Netherlands, respondent...