This paper analyzes a puzzling aspect of retirement behavior known as Òunretirement,Ó in which retirees appear to reverse their retirement decisions and return to work. Using panel data from the Health and Retirement Study, the author shows that nearly 50 percent of retirees follow a...

The effective tax on earnings embodied in the Social Security retirement earnings test has been as high as 50 percent. Despite numerous empirical studies, there is surprisingly little agreement about whether the earnings test affects male labor supply. In this paper, the authors provide a...

The authors bring together 40 randomized and non-randomized evaluations of education programs to compare cost-effectiveness, seeking to facilitate prioritization of different candidate interventions by policymakers. They examine cost-effectiveness across three outcomes (enrollment, attendance,...

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...

Relatively little is known about the impact of welfare reform on children's living arrangements, which was an important focus of reformers. We use data from the March CPS to examine this question. Our findings suggest three main conclusions. First, welfare reform in some cases has had large...

This paper provides new evidence on the institutional determinants of firm size. Using a comprehensive longitudinal database of firm characteristics across 29 industrial sectors in 15 OECD countries, the authors study how labor regulations and barriers to entrepreneurship affect industrial...

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...