Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, this paper creates variables measuring knowledge about future social security and pension benefits by comparing respondent reports of their expected benefits with benefits calculated from social security earnings records and employer provided...

This paper estimates reduced form retirement and wealth equations, and analyzes the relationship between them. Data are from the first four waves of the longitudinal Health and Retirement Study, individuals born from 1931 to 1941. Single equation retirement models relate the probability of...

This paper uses earnings histories obtained from the Social Security Administration and linked to the survey responses for participants in the Health and Retirement Study to investigate redistribution under the current social security benefit formula. We find that as advertised, at the level of...

This study examines retirement outcomes in the first four waves of the Health and Retirement Study. Measured retirement is seen to differ, sometimes substantially, with the definition of retirement used and among various groups analyzed. Moreover, these differences vary with the wave of the...

Pension plan descriptions from respondents to the 1992 Health and Retirement Study are compared with descriptions obtained from their employers. Earnings histories reported by respondents are compared with earnings histories from the Social Security Administration. The probability of linking...

By 1992, pensions and retiree health insurance represented one quarter of the wealth of families on the verge of retirement. Our simulations suggest that between 1969 and 1992, abstracting from the effects of changes in wages and years of covered work on pension benefit amounts, changing pension...

We compute pension wealth from employer provided pension plan descriptions matched to respondent surveys to the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women (NLS-MW) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). These calculations provide detailed information on the level and distribution of...

This study analyzes changes in the value of defined benefit (DB) pension plans over time. It uses summary plan descriptions provided by the employers of respondents to the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) in 1983 and in 1989, applying them to similar earnings histories. Pension changes between...

This paper examines the composition and distribution of total wealth for a cohort of 51 to 61 year olds from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), and the role of pensions in forming retirement wealth. Pension coverage is widespread, covering two thirds of households and accounting for one...

For each year of work under the Social Security System, immigrants realize higher benefits than U.S. born, even when their earnings are identical in all years the immigrant has been in the U.S.. Two features of the social security benefit calculation are responsible: the social security benefit...