In the official models for projections and policy analysis (used by the Treasury, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)), many key variables are assumed as a continuation of past trends. By contrast, in our model, these variables are simultaneously...

It is well established from research studies and basic data analysis that there is an exponential relationship between age and the infection to fatality ratio for COVID-19. Hence, the high mortality of the pandemic has been concentrated among the elderly. The close living arrangements of nursing...

This paper reviews the literature on the recent benefit and funding landscape of state and local government employee pension plans. Many plans, with generous benefit structures and inadequate funding, are in troubled financial shape. The state of Connecticut pension plans are a good illustration...

In a prior article (Warshawsky and Marchand, 2017), a colleague and I put forward some broad proposals to improve the system of financing long-term services and supports (LTSS) for older Americans, to make it fairer, more sustainable, and more consistent with the value of self-reliance. In this...

There are adjustment factors for early and late claiming of retirement benefits in Social Security which depend on the age when benefits are claimed. These adjustment factors are seriously out of date, as both interest and mortality rates have declined since the rules were designed and put into...

There is a large professional literature on the correct measurement of the funded status of and indicated employer contributions to government employee pension plans. But static measures do not provide a quantification of the risk that plans could represent in the future in various possible...

This paper empirically estimates sustainable sovereign debt limits for 27 OECD countries, updating the model in Ghosh et al. (2013). We assess fiscal reaction functions, confirming the fiscal fatigue hypothesis, where gross debt levels exceeding 140-145% of GDP begin to impair a country's...

In the official models for projections and policy analysis used by the Treasury and the Social Security and Medicare Trustees, many key variables are assumed as a continuation of past trends. Even the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), with more sophisticated models, makes certain simplifying...