This report analyzes retirement-saving behavior and portfolio choice in the United States, Italy, and the Netherlands. The authors test hypotheses on the implications of institutional differences for wealth accumulation and portfolio composition.

Web surveys have several advantages compared to more traditional surveys with in-person interviews, telephone interviews, or mail surveys. Their most obvious potential drawback is that they may not be representative of the population of interest because the sub-population with access to Internet...

Self-reported work disability is analyzed in the US, the UK and the Netherlands. Different wordings of the questions lead to different work disability rates. But even if identical questions are asked, crosscountry differences remain substantial. Respondent evaluations of work limitations of...

A positive relationship between socio-economic status and health has been observed over many populations and many time periods. One of the factors mediating this relation is the institutional environment in which people function. The authors consider longitudinal data from two countries with...

Many western industrialized countries face strong budgetary pressures due to the aging of the baby boom generations and the general trends toward earlier ages of retirement. The authors use the American PSID and the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) to explain differences in prevalence...

In the Dutch Postcode Lottery a postal code (19 households on average) is randomly selected weekly, and prizes Ðconsisting of cash and a new BMW-- are awarded to lottery participants living in that postal code. On average, this generates a temporary, unexpected income shock equal to about eight...

This paper investigates the role of pain in determining self-reported work disability in the U.S., the U.K. and The Netherlands. Even if identical questions are asked, cross-country differences in reported work disability remain substantial. In the U.S. and the Netherlands, respondent...

Differences in answers in Internet and traditional surveys can be due to selection, mode, or context effects. The authors exploit unique experimental data to analyze mode and context effects controlling for arbitrary selection. The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) surveys a random sample of the...

The authors study the effect of attrition and other forms of non-response on the representativity over time of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) sample born 1931-1941; the sample was initially drawn in 1992. Although some baseline characteristics of respondents do appear correlated with...

This paper investigates the role of pain in affecting self-reported work disability and employment of elderly workers in the US. The authors investigate pain and its relationship to work disability and work in a dynamic panel data model, using six biennial waves from the Health and Retirement...