Pension reform can potentially increase saving and improve incentives for labor force participation later in life. We investigate whether these effects are likely to occur and the potential size of the effects on private and total saving and on employment past age 55. Our survey of existing...

We examine the saving decline from the perspective of microeconomic survey data on the wealth position of American households. Can the surveys provide information on the nature and causes of the saving decline that are not evident in the macroeconomic information? The analysis concentrates on...

One way to assess the effectiveness of a nation’s pension system is to measure its success in bringing the incomes of the aged close to those enjoyed by the nonaged. The comparability of income estimates for the aged and nonaged depends, however, on the relative accuracy of the income reports...

Recessions affect the timing of retirement through two channels, a weaker job market and losses in household wealth. The two phenomena have opposite effects. A weaker economy causes employers to increase permanent job separations and reduce new hires, accelerating retirements that would...

This paper presents an overview of changes in household wealth accumulation and saving using wealth data from three micro-level surveys: Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We provide comparisons to the macroeconomic...

All major industrial countries will experience significant population aging over the next several decades. In both academic circles and the business press it is widely believed that population aging will have important effects on financial markets because of its expected impact on saving rates...

This paper reports on a project to construct and evaluate a wealth and saving dataset for those households who responded to the supplementary wealth and active saving modules of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) over the period of 1984 to 2005. The PSID is unique in providing...

This analysis uses data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the sources of variation in mortality for individuals of varying socioeconomic status. The use of the HRS allows a distinction between education and a measure of career earnings as primary determinants of socioeconomic...

The rising cost of U.S. health care has reduced the share of compensation that is taxable by Social Security. Between 1960 and 2010, non-taxable employer premiums for worker health plans increased from 1 percent of employee compensation to 7 percent. We use international data to examine the...

Each year the Board of Trustees of the Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds projects the future financial status of the programs extending as far as 75-years into the future. These projections incorporate anticipated trends in both demographic and economic determinants...