This book brings together in one volume what researchers have learned about workers, employers, and retirees that is important for formulating retirement income policies. As the U.S. population ages, there is increasing uncertainty about the solvency of the Social Security and Medicare systems and the adequacy of private pensions to provide for people's retirement needs. The volume covers such critical behaviors as workers' decisions to retire, people's choices of saving over consumption, and employers' decisions about hiring older workers and providing pension and health care benefits. Also covered are trends in mortality, health status, and health care costs that are key to projecting the likely costs and effects of alternative retirement income security policies and a strategy for combining data and research knowledge into a policy modeling framework.
- Assessing Knowledge of Retirement Behavior
- Copyright
- Preface
- Contents
- 1 Introduction
- INCOME AND WEALTH OF OLDER AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS
- LABOR SUPPLY BEHAVIOR
- PERSONAL SAVING BEHAVIOR
- EMPLOYER BEHAVIOR
- MORTALITY, HEALTH STATUS, AND HEALTH CARE COSTS
- A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYZING RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY
- CONCLUSION
- 2 Income and Wealth of Older American Households: Modeling Issues for Public Policy Analysis
- CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW
- COMPONENTS OF INCOME AND WEALTH OF OLDER HOUSEHOLDS
- Income Distribution Issues
- MODELS OF INDIVIDUAL AND FIRM BEHAVIOR EXPLAINING RETIREMENT INCOME AND WEALTH
- Income from Earnings Based on Labor Supply Decisions
- Savings and Wealth Determination
- Life-Cycle Analysis
- Precautionary Models of Savings
- Bequest Motive
- Research Integrating These Motives
- Research that Imposes Only Limited Structure
- Research Arguing that Full Optimization is Unlikely
- Continuing Controversy in the Savings Literature
- Pensions and Social Security
- At the Level of the Individual
- Pension Plan Determination at the Level of the Firm
- Research on Family Structures and Transfers
- Research on Housing
- RECONCILING RESEARCH ON LABOR SUPPLY, SAVINGS, AND PENSIONS
- MODELS AND DATA NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND THE INCOMES AND WEALTH OF OLDERAMERICANS
- SELECTED POLICIES AFFECTING RETIREMENT INCOMES AND WEALTH
- APPENDIX TABLES AND FIGURES
- NOTES
- REFERENCES
- 3 Factors Affecting Labor Supply Decisions and Retirement Income
- SUMMARY OF TRENDS
- SOCIAL SECURITY
- PENSIONS AND WINDOW PLANS
- Literature Review and Previous Methodology
- What we would like to know
- DISABILITY
- Literature Review and Previous Methodology
- What We Would Like to Know
- MEDICARE AND HEALTH INSURANCE
- Literature Review and Previous Methodology
- What We Would Like to Know
- HOURS FLEXIBILITY AND CAREER JOBS
- Literature Review and Previous Methodology
- What We Would Like to Know
- CONCLUSIONS
- Expectations
- Endogeneity
- Uncertainty
- Data Issues
- Other Concerns
- NOTES
- REFERENCES
- 4 Personal Saving Behavior and Retirement Income Modeling: A Research Assessment
- FORECASTING FINANCIAL STATUS: AN ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK
- Patterns of Wealth Holding for Pre-Retirement Cohorts
- Rates of Return
- Age-Specific Patterns of Net Saving
- MOTIVES FOR AND MODELS OF PRIVATE SAVING: WHAT DO WE KNOW?
- SOCIAL SECURITY AND PRIVATE SAVING
- PRIVATE PENSIONS AND SAVING
- TARGETED RETIREMENT SAVING ACCOUNTS AND PERSONAL SAVING
- Prospective Accumulation in Targeted Saving Accounts
- Net Saving Effects
- Withdrawal Behavior
- HOUSING WEALTH AND OTHER PRIVATE SAVING
- CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH NEEDS
- REFERENCES
- 5 Retirement Age and Retirement Income: The Role of the Firm
- THE AGING WORKER AND THE FIRM
- The Aging Worker
- The Firm
- Scale Economies in Pension Administration
- Diseconomies of Scale in Idiosyncratic Decisions
- THE EMPLOYMENT OF OLDER WORKERS
- Compensation Profiles
- Mandatory Retirement Rules
- New-Hire Policies
- EMPLOYER-PROVIDED PENSIONS
- The Locus of Pension Coverage
- Trends in Pension Coverage
- A Pension Puzzle
- CONCLUSIONS
- Basic Data Needs
- The Ideal: Matched Worker/Firm Surveys of Workplaces
- Second Best: Employer Surveys with Estimates of Worker Characteristics
- Case Studies
- Administrative Cost Surveys
- Historical Analyses of Firm Behavior
- Basic Research
- The Determinants of Industry Structure
- The Firm, Information, and Control
- Aging and the Firm: Unfinished Business
- Priority Topics
- Emerging Issues
- NOTES
- REFERENCES
- 6 Assessing Forecasts of Mortality, Health Status, and Health Costs During BabyBoomers' Retirement
- HOW RAPIDLY WILL MORTALITY DECLINE?
- Mortality Decline in the United States During the 20th Century
- Comparisons of Forecasts
- Other Methods of Forecasting Mortality Change
- Evaluating the Uncertainty of Mortality Forecasts
- Some Specific Research Suggestions Using Existing Data and Established Methods
- Recommended Improvements in Data
- Recommended Research on Modeling and Methods
- HEALTH STATUS PROJECTIONS AND THE COMPRESSION OF DISABILITY
- The Compression Debate
- Strategies to Modeling Disability
- Recommendations for Improving Modeling and Data Collection
- PREDICTING HEALTH CARE COSTS
- Predicting Real Health Care Services by Demographic Group
- Predicting Health Care Quantities and Prices for the Next Century
- Conceptual Issues in Modeling Health Care Cost Projections
- HOW WILL CHANGING MORTALITY, HEALTH, AND HEALTH COSTS AFFECT RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY?
- The Effect of Changes in the Demographic Structure on Income Security for the Elderly
- Traditional Approaches
- Stochastic Population Forecasts
- The Impact of Improving Patterns of Disability on Delaying Retirement
- The Distribution of Health Expenses Among Out-of-Pocket, Private Insurance, and Public Insurance
- The Distribution of Retirement Income
- CONCLUSION
- NOTES
- REFERENCES
- 7 A Framework for Analyzing Future Retirement Income Security
- MICRO MODELS OF RETIREMENT INCOME
- Social Security Forecasts
- Employer-Sponsored Pensions
- Household Saving
- DYNAMIC MICROSIMULATION
- MACROECONOMIC MODELING
- Determination of Aggregate Output
- Alternative Saving Models
- CYCLES
- CONCLUSION
- NOTES
- REFERENCES
- Biographical Sketches
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