The Social Security earnings test reduces benefits at a 33-50% rate once earnings pass a threshold amount - among the highest marginal tax rates in the economy. Previous research dismissed the importance of the earnings test but failed to take advantage of three changes in the earnings test...

New technologies like computers alter skill requirements. This paper explores two related effects of computers on older workers, who use computers less. The evolution of computer use in the Current Population Survey suggests that impending retirement reduces the incentive of older workers to...

This paper revisits the evidence on the impact of unilateral divorce laws on divorce rates in the United States. Most states switched from requiring mutual consent to allowing unilateral or no-fault divorce between 1970 and 1985, while the national divorce rate more than doubled after 1965....

A growing literature offers indirect evidence that the distribution of bargaining power within a household influences decisions made by the household. The indirect evidence links household outcomes to variables that are assumed to influence the distribution of power within the household. In this...

Using the widely-cited Lee-Carter mortality model, we quantify aggregate mortality risk as the risk that the average annuitant lives longer than is predicted by the model, and we conclude that annuity business exposes insurance companies to substantial mortality risk. We calculate that a markup...

Recent declines in job tenure have coincided with a shift away from traditional defined benefit (DB) pensions, which reward long tenure. Recent evidence also points to an increase in job-to-job movements by workers, and we document gains in relative wages of job-to-job movers over a similar...

Current and expected job tenure have fallen significantly over the last two decades. Over the same period, traditional defined benefit pensions, designed to reward long tenure, have become steadily less common. This paper uses a contract-theoretic matching model with moral hazard to explain...

Defined benefit pension plans have become considerably less common since the early 1980s, while defined contribution plans have spread. Previous research showed that defined benefit plans, with sharp incentives encouraging retirement after a certain point, contributed to the striking postwar...

"This paper studies the cycles of nationalization and privatization in resource-rich economies. We discuss available evidence on the drivers and consequences of privatization and nationalization, review the existing literature, and present illustrative case studies. Our main contribution is then...