Many economic analyses of public policy issues are based upon the life-cycle model of household behavior. The usual formulation omits private intergenerational transfers. This paper considers the possibility of a more sophisticated formulation that includes the latter. We examine 1992-2008 HRS...

Studies of adolescents and young adults have shown that schooling impacts economic outcomes beyond its impact on cognitive ability. Research has also shown that the personality trait of conscientiousness predicts health outcomes, academic outcomes, and divorce. Using the Big Five taxonomy of...

We study the effects of the 2007-2009 recession on the population age 55 and older. Households in and near retirement have suffered sizeable losses in assets as a result of the economic crisis. There are a number of ways in which households might respond: reduce spending and with that increase...

This is the first study to use longitudinal data to explore both the antecedents and consequences of fraud victimization in the older population. Because older persons are close to or past the peak of their wealth accumulation, they are often the targets of fraud. This paper reports on analysis...

State and local government pension plans cover about 19.5 million participants, and many participants are heavily reliant on these pensions for retirement income. Most of these plans, however, are underfunded. Based on data from the Health and Retirement Study, we examined the lifetime work...

This paper uses asset and labor market data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate how the recent "Great Recession" has affected the wealth and retirement of those in the population who were just approaching retirement age at the beginning of the recession, a potentially...

We have found modest effects of widowhood events on loss of health insurance. There are also modest effects of widowhood on labor supply, which we have not as yet attempted to attribute to insurance demand. Even new widowhood events, however, are not random with respect to initial conditions....

This paper analyzes new data on financial literacy and financial sophistication from the 2008 Health and Retirement Study. We show that financial literacy is lacking among older individuals and for the first time explore additional questions on financial sophistication which proves even scarcer....

This paper investigates how increases in the level of maximum earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax have affected Social Security benefits and taxes. The analysis uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to ask how different the present value of own benefits and taxes would...

Our findings suggest that although the consequences of the decline in the stock market are serious for those approaching their retirement, the average person approaching retirement age is not likely to suffer a life changing financial loss from the stock market downturn of 2008-2009. Similarly,...