This paper examines the degree to which the elderly reduce homeownership as they age, and the factors which influence this process. We find that average levels of homeownership decline significantly with age, even when cohort effects are taken into consideration, and that the amount of housing...

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 use data across states to examine the relation between HMO enrollment and medical spending. We find that increased managed care enrollment significantly reduces hospital cost growth. While some of this effect is offset by increased spending on physicians, we generally find a significant...

In this paper, we examine the effects of likely demographic changes on medical spending for the elderly. Standard forecasts highlight the potential for greater life expectancy to increase costs: medical costs generally increase with age, and greater life expectancy means that more of the elderly...

Financial economists have long favoured the use of a wind-up measure of the firm's pension liabilities. Yet the pension liabilities of the firm also represent the pension wealth of its workers. It is reasonable to presume that workers and shareholders have a common view of the pension contract....

This paper examines the effect of government nursing home policies on institutionalization rates and support for the elderly in the community. We combine data from the National Long Term Care Survey with information on state policies to estimate these effects. We examine two state policies for...

A major factor weighing down the long-term finances of state and local governments is the obligation to fund retiree benefits. While state and local government pension obligations have been analyzed in great detail, much less attention has been paid to the costs of the other major retiree...