In this paper, the authors studied the association of cognitive traits and in particular numeracy of both spouses on financial outcomes of the family. They found significant effects, particularly for numeracy for financial and non-financial respondents alike, but much larger effects for the...

Little is known about the degree to which individuals are uncertain about their future Social Security benefits, how this varies within the U.S. population, and whether this uncertainty influences financial decisions related to retirement planning. To illuminate these issues, the authors present...

The aim of this study was to understand the potential effects of different information disclosures regarding risk on retirement investing behavior. The authors developed and tested two modifications to the section on investment performance on the prototype DOL Model Comparative Chart, providing...

The authors present the first estimates of the causal effects of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) receipt on labor supply that are generalizable to the entire population of program entrants in the present day system. They take advantage of a unique workload management database to...

Eligible participants in the U.S. Social Security system may claim benefits anytime from age 62-70, with benefit levels actuarially adjusted based on the claiming age. This paper shows that individual intentions with regard to Social Security claiming ages are sensitive to how the early versus...

In this paper, the authors model the consequences of childhood health on adult health and socioeconomic status outcomes in China using a new sample of middle aged and older Chinese respondents. Modeled after the American Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), the CHARLS Pilot survey respondents are...

Many economic applications have found quantile models useful when the explanatory variables may have varying impacts throughout the distribution of the outcome variable. Traditional quantile estimators provide conditional quantile treatment effects. Typically, we are interested in unconditional...

The link between taxes and occupational choices is central for understanding the welfare impacts of income taxes. Just as taxes distort the labor-leisure decision, they also distort the wage-amenity decision. Yet, there have been few studies on the full response along this margin. When tax rates...

A growing number of countries are developing or reforming pension and health policies in response to population ageing and to enhance the welfare of their citizens. The adoption of different policies by different countries has resulted in several natural experiments. These offer unusual...