We examine individuals' self-reported willingness to exchange part of their Social Security inflation-indexed annuity benefit for an immediate lump-sum payment, using an experimental module in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study. Our first finding is that nearly three out of five respondents...

The heated debate about how to reform Social Security has come to a standstill because the view of most Democrats (that Social Security must be a defined benefits plan similar in spirit to the current system) seems irreconcilable with the proposals supported by many Republicans (to create a...

Implicit taxes in Social Security, which measure Social Security contributions net of benefits accrued as a percentage of earnings, tend to increase over the life cycle. In this paper, we examine the effects of three potential policy changes on implicit Social Security tax rates: extending the...

This paper analyzes changes in the progressivity of the Social Security benefit formula as a means of lessening the risk inherent in investment-based Social Security reform. Focusing on a single cohort of workers, it simulates the distribution of benefits subject to both earnings and financial...

Around the world, Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) public pension programs face serious long-term fiscal problems due primarily to actual and projected population aging, and most appear unsustainable as currently structured. Some have proposed the replacement of such plans with systems of fully funded...

Retirement policy has indirect effects on its beneficiaries, through the “crowd-out” or “crowd-in” of insurance markets. We study how retirement policy in Chile, which limits the drawdown of retirement assets but otherwise does not provide or require fixed income in retirement, results...

Over the last fifteen years, France has experienced a reversal of older workers' labor force participation and employment rates. Changes in health, life expectancy or education levels over the period are trend variables and thus cannot explain this “U-shaped” time profile. Pension reforms...

We develop a model to study optimal decision making in the face of uncertainty about the timing and structure of a future event. The model is used to study optimal decision making and welfare when individuals face uncertainty about when and how Social Security will be reformed. When individuals...

Older Americans have experienced dramatic gains in life expectancy in recent decades, but an emerging literature reveals that these gains are accumulating mostly to those at the top of the income distribution. We explore how growing inequality in life expectancy affects lifetime benefits from...

We explore what happened when the state of Utah moved away from its traditional defined benefit pension. In its place, it offered new hires a choice between a conventional defined contribution plan and a hybrid plan option, where the latter has both a guaranteed benefit component and a defined...