The Post-9/11 GI Bill allows service members to transfer generous education benefits to a dependent. We run a large-scale experiment to test whether active choice framing impacts US Army service members' decision to transfer benefits. Individuals who received email messages framing GI Bill use...

The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) is the source of the nation's official household income and poverty statistics. In 2012, the CPS ASEC showed that median household income was $33,800 for householders aged 65 and over and the poverty rate was 9.1...

Retirement Study? This article uses household wealth and labor market data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate how the recent "Great Recession" has affected the wealth and retirement of those approaching retirement age as the recession began, a potentially vulnerable...

The aging of the American population will be a critical public policy issue in the years ahead. This paper surveys the recent literature on the economics of aging, with a special emphasis on government spending on the aged. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that the proportion of the elderly in...

Population aging is typically associated with economic challenges for productivity and financial threats for the old-age financial protection system of a country. This paper takes an optimistic position and outlines key ingredients to make it a successful experience. Yet to turn this challenge...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the effect of changing the retirement age on employment. Base on individual data from Hungary, a country where a number of hikes increased the retirement age between 1997 and 2009, this analysis benefits from substantial variation in pension eligibility...

Although elderly men and women share many of the same problems as they age, their lives are likely to follow different courses. Women are more likely than men to live into old old-age and are more likely to spend part of their young old-age caring for husbands or parents. By providing this...

This paper analyses the effects of retirement on cognitive abilities for the elderly poor on the basis of the “mental retirement” effect that accompanies retirement. Given the recent emergence and expansion of non-contributory pension programs to alleviate poverty in old-age across low and...

One partial solution to the strains of an aging society is continued work later in life, and self-employment is one way that some older Americans have chosen to remain in the labor force. The individual and societal benefits of continued work are straightforward: each additional year that...

This paper studies the economic effects on re-employment and program substitution behavioramong elderly displaced workers who exogenously lose eligibility for their early retirement option. We use detailed Norwegian matched employer-employee data containing information on bankruptcy dates and...