Research on Aging
The research agenda of the RAND Center for the Study of Aging focuses on the relationships among institutional and socioeconomic factors, health, and financial well-being among the elderly. Most projects engage in secondary data analysis; some design, field, and analyze original surveys. The Center's Data Management and Computing Core aims to make primary data publicly available with extensive documentation and for a minimal or zero fee to the user.
Following is a partial list of recently completed and on-going research projects. Hover your cursor over project titles for brief descriptions. For more information, please contact the respective investigator(s).
Topic Areas:
Retirement
Back to Work: Expectations and Realizations of Work after Retirement
This project analyzes labor force re-entry after retirement in an effort to understand whether these "unretirement" transitions are largely unexpected or planned.
The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: Anticipated and Actual Declines in Spending at Retirement
The Effects of Subjective Survival on Retirements and Social Security Claiming
The Economic Cost of Joint Retirement
The goal of this research is to explore the retirement ages of married and single women and simulate the costs of foregone earnings, pension accruals, and savings of married women who tend to retire at a younger age than their husbands.
Consumption Dynamics Near and After Retirement
This project will use the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey, which is a three-wave panel on spending based on 5000 randomly chosen HRS households, to study consumption paths from the immediate pre-retirement years to advanced old age.
Expectations and Realization of Retirement Benefits
This project will use HRS data to study individuals' expectations of Social Security and pension income and their evolution over time. In addition, we will analyze the dynamics of deviations between the respondents' subjective expectations and objective forecasts based upon Social Security rules and details of employers' pension plans. Finally, we will also analyze the deviations between these expectations and the benefits respondents actually receive once they have started to claim.
Understanding Joint Retirement Decisions in Couples
The key objective of this proposed research is to understand the separate impact of health status, social security and disability programs, employer pension incentives, spousal care giving, and preferences for joint leisure on the retirement decision of individuals in couples).
Wealth and Retirement
This project studies the impact of large wealth changes resulting from the boom and bust in the stock market on retirement behavior. Furthermore, in the context of the link between socio-economic status and health, it will find whether the gains or losses in the stock market affected self-assessed health, which could have a subsequent effect on retirement and saving.
Measuring Pension Outcomes
This project investigates how best to measure values and incentives of pensions in the Health and Retirement Study. The analysis will analyze how to incorporate pension changes and pension knowledge into estimates of retirement models.
Dynamic Structural Models of Retirement and Disability
We propose to use all available waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) and AHEAD Survey to estimate a comprehensive dynamic programming (DP) model of behavior at the end of the life cycle. This model provides a detailed treatment of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Old Age and Survivors Income (OASI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Disability Insurance (DI) programs. Particular attention will be paid to developing, estimating, and testing a multi-stage dynamic programming (DP) model of the SSI and DI applications, appeal, and award process, for (possibly) heterogeneous agents.
Health and Workplace Conditions in Retirement Models
The primary aim of this project is to incorporate health and workplace conditions in state-of-the-art economic models of retirement in an effort to achieve a broader understanding of the retirement process. An equally important and complementary objective of this project is to develop and analyze readily comparable measures of these non-pecuniary factors in the United States and Europe, taking advantage of recently and soon-to-be-collected cross-nationally comparable data sets.
Effects of Large Capital Gains on Work and Consumption
This project evaluates the effects of unexpected capital gains during the 1990s on work and consumption.
Evaluation of the Effects of Changing Social Security Administration's Early Entitlement Age and the Normal Retirement Age
This project conducts an evaluation for the Social Security Administration to assess how changing the Early Entitlement Age and the Normal Retirement Age will affect retirement behavior.
Long-Term Consequences of Pension Cash-Out
This research estimates the long-run consequences of worker choices to cash out pension rights instead of annuitizing them. Models of cash-out choices are being estimated as a function of different variables such as survival probabilities, health status, and economic status
An Option Value Approach to Modeling Coordinated Labor Force Participation Decisions of Spouses
This project takes an option value approach to modeling the joint retirement decision by married couples. It specifically addresses the availability of own or spousal health insurance after retirement but before Medicare eligibility, and accounts for the accumulation patterns in private pensions and Social Security.
Pension Cash-Out Choices Among 30-50 Year Old Workers
This project studies the prevalence and correlates of pension cash-out choices among 30-50 year-old workers, i.e., a pre-HRS cohort.
How Important are Wages to the Elderly?
This study examines two questions to better understand the labor supply of the elderly: 1) Who works following the claiming of Social Security and eligibility for Medicare benefits? and 2) Do the elderly respond to marginal changes in labor taxes?
Health, Economic Resources and the Work of Older Americans
This project analyzes how health status and economic factors jointly affect labor market force behavior as workers approach retirement age, with particular focus on the choices people make when their health declines.
Economic Status of the Elderly
Transitions to Self-Employment at Older Ages: The Role of Wealth, Health, Health Insurance, and Other Factors
Self-Employment Trends and Patterns Among Older U.S. Workers
Are Bequests Accidental or Desired
Anticipated and Actual Bequests
Themes in the Economics of Aging
Intergenerational Financial Transfers
This research will estimate annual and lifetime flows of inter-vivos financial transfers, find their determinants and integrate them with estimates of bequests. It will develop, analyze, and estimate a formal economic model that combines inter-vivos financial transfers and bequests in a single unified framework.
Living Arrangements, Health and Wealth of the Elderly
This research will document and find the determinants of the living arrangements of the elderly and show how they are related to health and economic status.
Long-Term Consequences of Pension Trends for the Economic Security of Widows
DB pensions, unlike DC pensions, pay a lifelong guaranteed benefit to retired workers and, by default, their widows. The recent trend from DB to DC pensions may thus deprive many future widows of a pension income, which may increase future poverty among the oldest old.
An International Comparison of Retirement Saving and Portfolio Allocation Behavior
This project analyzes wealth accumulation and portfolio allocation among the population age 50 and over in the United States, Italy, and the Netherlands.
The Economic and Demographic Determinants of Bequests.
This project investigates the role of inheritances and bequests in shaping household decisions on wealth accumulation.
Expected Bequests and Their Distribution
The purpose of this study is to learn about bequest behavior by using new methods of measuring anticipated and actual bequests. It tracks how and why bequest intentions evolve over time.
Effects of Large Capital Gains on Work and Consumption
This project evaluates the effects of unexpected capital gains during the 1990s on work and consumption.
Exploratory Psychological Explanations for Saving Behavior
This project conducts an exploratory analysis of non-standard explanations of saving behavior. It uses data from two experimental modules in HRS wave 3.
Health and Economic Status
The aim of this project is to estimate the effect of new health events on two central measures of household SES - wealth and income.
International Comparisons of Saving Behavior
The great variation across countries in the level of public pensions should lead to corresponding variation in household saving. This project aims to take advantage of this variation to estimate the substitution between pension saving and household saving.
Long-Term Consequences of Pension Cash-Out
This research estimates the long-run consequences of worker choices to cash out pension rights instead of annuitizing them. Models of cash-out choices are being estimated as a function of different variables such as survival probabilities, health status, and economic status.
Health, Economic Resources and the Work of Older Americans.
This project analyzes how health status and economic factors jointly affect labor market force behavior as workers approach retirement age, with particular focus on the choices people make when their health declines.
Long-Term Changes in Saving Behavior.
This research documents trends in the structure of household savings and wealth over the period from the 1960's to the first years of the 21st century.
Real Wealth Change from 1982 to 1991 Among the Newly Retired
This project uses data from the 1982 New Beneficiary Survey and the 1991 New Beneficiary Follow up to study wealth change among the newly retired over that period.
How Important are Wages to the Elderly?
This study examines two questions to better understand the labor supply of the elderly: 1) Who works following the claiming of Social Security and eligibility for Medicare benefits? and 2) Do the elderly respond to marginal changes in labor taxes?
Wealth, Savings, and Marriage
This project investigates patterns of wealth, asset accumulation, and savings among alternative household arrangements: married, divorced, separated, widowed.
The Value of Medicare
Wave three of the Health and Retirement Study had some experimental questions about how individuals value Medicare. The exploratory project has analyzed these data and related the variation to household characteristics such as wealth, and private holdings of health care insurance.
Wealth Disparities Among Mature And Older Adults
This project attempts to comprehensively describe the patterns of asset accumulation and savings among middle-aged and older American households.
Wealth, Savings, and Financial Security Among Older Households
This project conducts a study of data quality in the HRS and AHEAD in the area of economic status
Income and Wealth Inequality Among the Elderly: Long-Run Socioeconomic Factors
Marital Status, Health, Household Income And Saving
This project analysis the links between marital status, health, household income, and saving, with particular emphasis on potential endogeneity issues.
The Changing Role of Private Pensions in Providing Income Security During Retirement
Health and Socioeconomic Status
The Impact of Nearly Universal Insurance Coverage on Health Care Utilization and Health: Evidence from Medicare
Health, Wealth, and the Role of Institutions
Forecasting the Nursing Home Population
Living Arrangements, Health and Wealth of the Elderly
This research will document and find the determinants of the living arrangements of the elderly and show how they are related to health and economic status.
Socio-Economic Status and Health
The overall objective of this project is to investigate the reasons for the substantial and persistent gradient between socio-economic status (SES) and many dimensions of health status.
Institutional Effects on Health and Economic Status
The primary aim of this project is to investigate the health-SES nexus in a systematic cross country comparison using comparable data from twelve different countries taking advantage of recently and soon-to-be-collected cross-nationally comparable data sets.
Causes and Consequences of Obesity Among the Elderly
The aim of this project is to study the determinants of weight in this population, and the consequences of weight for their health. To guide the research, we will develop a dynamic economic model of weight gain that illustrates the relationships between food prices, exercise availability, income, and weight.
Wealth and Retirement
This project studies the impact of large wealth changes resulting from the boom and bust in the stock market on retirement behavior. Furthermore, in the context of the link between socio-economic status and health, it will find whether the gains or losses in the stock market affected self-assessed health, which could have a subsequent effect on retirement and saving.
Exploratory Psychological Explanations for Saving Behavior
This project conducts an exploratory analysis of non-standard explanations of saving behavior. It uses data from two experimental modules in HRS wave 3.
Health and Economic Status
The aim of this project is to estimate the effect of new health events on two central measures of household SES - wealth and income.
Health Status and Family Support of the Elderly
This project examines the role of health status in determining familial support for the elderly in the United States using two new nationally representative panel surveys.
Understanding Poverty Among Divorced Elderly
This study investigates the factors causing such a large fraction of elderly divorcees to live in poverty.
Health Status and Medical Treatment of Future Elderly - Implications for Medicare Program Expenditures
This project develops a microsimulation model of the health status of future Medicare participants. It evaluates Macicare cost implications and conducts scenario analyses of innovations in medical techniology and health care delivery.
Marital Status and Health in Middle and Late Life
This project uses data from a national longitudinal survey to examine race and gender patterns in the association between marital status and health.
The Meaning of Health in Social Surveys
This project examines a battery of health indicators collected in a social survey in order to better understand the meaning and interpretation of these indicators.
Measuring Health in Social Surveys
This project supports a workshop on the measurement of health status in social surveys and the interpretation of the measures. Additionally, it conducts an analysis and training workshop for Indonesians who have participated in the IFLS project over the last three years.
The Value of Medicare
Wave three of the Health and Retirement Study had some experimental questions about how individuals value Medicare. The exploratory project has analyzed these data and related the variation to household characteristics such as wealth, and private holdings of health care insurance.
Age Difference of Spouses and Long-Term Care
Age differences between spouses have been declining over the past century. This research examines the implication of that trend for the level of use of nursing home care.
Adult Health and Health Care Utilization
Stochastic Forecasts of Disability Prevalence
Disability greatly affects individuals' well-being and has far-reaching implications for public programs such as Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicare. This project will analyze the stochastic time series properties of disability rates and develop preliminary stochastic forecasts of the prevalence of disability over the next four decades.
Health Insurance Choices of Pre-Medicare Americans
Retirement Expectations and Realizations
This project documents workers' expectations about retirement, retirees' well-being and their peace-of-mind about future well-being, and analyzes the relationship between post-retirement peace-of-mind and a range of retiree characteristics, with special emphasis on the extent to which financial resources to support retirement are in the form of lifelong annuities.
Health Insurance Choices in the Medicare Population
This project examines the health insurance choices of the Medicare population.
Health Sector Planning in Indonesia
Income and Wealth Inequality Among the Elderly: Long-Run Socioeconomic Factors
Marital Status, Health, Household Income And Saving
This project analysis the links between marital status, health, household income, and saving, with particular emphasis on potential endogeneity issues.
Near-Term Model Development
This project develops a microsimulation model of marriage, divorce, disability, and mortality based on SIPP data. It forms the demographic component of the MINT microsimulation model of the Social Security Administration.
Objective Measures of Health Status and Access to Care in Surveys of Low Income Populations.
Social Security
Expectations and Realization of Retirement Benefits
This project will use HRS data to study individuals' expectations of Social Security and pension income and their evolution over time. In addition, we will analyze the dynamics of deviations between the respondents' subjective expectations and objective forecasts based upon Social Security rules and details of employers' pension plans. Finally, we will also analyze the deviations between these expectations and the benefits respondents actually receive once they have started to claim.
International Comparisons of Saving Behavior
The great variation across countries in the level of public pensions should lead to corresponding variation in household saving. This project aims to take advantage of this variation to estimate the substitution between pension saving and household saving.
Long-Term Changes in Saving Behavior
This research documents trends in the structure of household savings and wealth over the period from the 1960's to the first years of the 21st century.
Providing Case Data for Evaluation and Other Research
The Social Security Administration maintains a number of files with data on individuals for the administration of several benefit programs. In addition to their operational function, these data files are useful for research purposes. This project documents and develops procedures to create data files and tabulations of administrative data files in support of such research.
How Important are Wages to the Elderly?
This study examines two questions to better understand the labor supply of the elderly: 1) Who works following the claiming of Social Security and eligibility for Medicare benefits? and 2) Do the elderly respond to marginal changes in labor taxes?
Near-Term Model Development
This project develops a microsimulation model of marriage, divorce, disability, and mortality based on SIPP data. It forms the demographic component of the MINT microsimulation model of the Social Security Administration.
The Changing Role of Private Pensions in Providing Income Security During Retirement
Consumption and Saving
Are Bequests Accidental or Desired
Are There Gains to Delaying Marriage? The Effect of Age at First Marriage on Career Development and Wages
Anticipated and Actual Bequests
Themes in the Economics of Aging
Long-Term Consequences of Pension Trends for the Economic Security of Widows
DB pensions, unlike DC pensions, pay a lifelong guaranteed benefit to retired workers and, by default, their widows. The recent trend from DB to DC pensions may thus deprive many future widows of a pension income, which may increase future poverty among the oldest old.
An International Comparison of Retirement Saving and Portfolio Allocation Behavior
This project analyzes wealth accumulation and portfolio allocation among the population age 50 and over in the United States, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Changes in Consumption and Activities in Retirement
This research uses panel data on consumption and time-use from the HRS to compare the change in consumption at retirement with anticipated changes, and examines whether the substitution of home production for market purchases can explain any drop in consumption.
Consumption Dynamics Near and After Retirement
This project will use the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey, which is a three-wave panel on spending based on 5000 randomly chosen HRS households, to study consumption paths from the immediate pre-retirement years to advanced old age.
Housing Price Risk, Home Ownership, and Wealth
In this project, we will test the effects of housing price risk on housing choice and wealth accumulation. Our model predicts that people who live in areas or countries with higher housing price risk should own their first home at a younger age, should live in larger homes, should have less steep housing consumption profiles, and should hold less equity in risky assets such as stocks.
The Economic and Demographic Determinants of Bequests
This project investigates the role of inheritances and bequests in shaping household decisions on wealth accumulation.
Effects of Large Capital Gains on Work and Consumption
This project evaluates the effects of unexpected capital gains during the 1990s on work and consumption.
Exploratory Psychological Explanations for Saving Behavior
This project conducts an exploratory analysis of non-standard explanations of saving behavior. It uses data from two experimental modules in HRS wave 3.
International Comparisons of Saving Behavior
The great variation across countries in the level of public pensions should lead to corresponding variation in household saving. This project aims to take advantage of this variation to estimate the substitution between pension saving and household saving.
Long-Term Consequences of Pension Cash-Out
This research estimates the long-run consequences of worker choices to cash out pension rights instead of annuitizing them. Models of cash-out choices are being estimated as a function of different variables such as survival probabilities, health status, and economic status.
Long-Term Changes in Saving Behavior
This research documents trends in the structure of household savings and wealth over the period from the 1960's to the first years of the 21st century.
Pension Cash-Out Choices Among 30-50 Year Old Workers
This project studies the prevalence and correlates of pension cash-out choices among 30-50 year-old workers, i.e., a pre-HRS cohort.
Real Wealth Change from 1982 to 1991 Among the Newly Retired
This project uses data from the 1982 New Beneficiary Survey and the 1991 New Beneficiary Follow up to study wealth change among the newly retired over that period.
Wealth, Savings, and Marriage
This project investigates patterns of wealth, asset accumulation, and savings among alternative household arrangements: married, divorced, separated, widowed.
Wealth Disparities Among Mature And Older Adults
This project attempts to comprehensively describe the patterns of asset accumulation and savings among middle-aged and older American households.
Wealth, Savings, and Financial Security Among Older Households
This project conducts a study of data quality in the HRS and AHEAD in the area of economic status
Income and Wealth Inequality Among the Elderly: Long-Run Socioeconomic Factors.
International Research
Birth Spacing and Neonatal Mortality in India: Dynamics, Frailty, and Fecundity
International Comparisons of Work Disability
Self-reported Work Disability in the US and The Netherlands
The Size and Composition of Wealth Holdings in the United States, Italy, and the Netherlands
Employment Dynamics of Married Women in Europe
Work Disability is a Pain in the *****, Especially in England, The Netherlands, and the United States
An International Comparison of Retirement Saving and Portfolio Allocation Behavior
This project analyzes wealth accumulation and portfolio allocation among the population age 50 and over in the United States, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Comparing Work Disabilities across Countries
This project aims at explaining differences in self-reported work limiting disability prevalence between several countries and between demographic groups within countries. Moreover, it aims at analyzing the dynamics of work disability and labor market status.
Institutional Effects on Health and Economic Status
The primary aim of this project is to investigate the health-SES nexus in a systematic cross country comparison using comparable data from twelve different countries taking advantage of recently and soon-to-be-collected cross-nationally comparable data sets.
Health and Workplace Conditions in Retirement Models
The primary aim of this project is to incorporate health and workplace conditions in state-of-the-art economic models of retirement in an effort to achieve a broader understanding of the retirement process. An equally important and complementary objective of this project is to develop and analyze readily comparable measures of these non-pecuniary factors in the United States and Europe, taking advantage of recently and soon-to-be-collected cross-nationally comparable data sets.
International Comparisons of Saving Behavior
The great variation across countries in the level of public pensions should lead to corresponding variation in household saving. This project aims to take advantage of this variation to estimate the substitution between pension saving and household saving.
The Meaning of Health in Social Surveys
This project examines a battery of health indicators collected in a social survey in order to better understand the meaning and interpretation of these indicators.
Measuring Health in Social Surveys
This project supports a workshop on the measurement of health status in social surveys and the interpretation of the measures. Additionally, it conducts an analysis and training workshop for Indonesians who have participated in the IFLS project over the last three years.
Health Sector Planning in Indonesia.
Indonesian Family Life Survey of Aging Dynamics.
The Third Indonesian Family Life Survey
This project designs and fields the third wave of a public-use longitudinal household and community-facility survey, the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS3).
Objective Measures of Health Status and Access to Care in Surveys of Low Income Populations.
Intergenerational Transfers and Support
Are Bequests Accidental or Desired
Resource Transfers to the Elderly: Do Adult Children Substitute Financial Transfers for Time Transfers?
Anticipated and Actual Bequests
Themes in the Economics of Aging
Intergenerational Financial Transfers
This research will estimate annual and lifetime flows of inter-vivos financial transfers, find their determinants and integrate them with estimates of bequests. It will develop, analyze, and estimate a formal economic model that combines inter-vivos financial transfers and bequests in a single unified framework.
Family Transfer Behavior in the HRS and AHEAD
The goal of this research is to investigate whether an adult child substitutes financial transfer to an elderly parent with time as the cost of his or her time increases.
The Economic and Demographic Determinants of Bequests
This project investigates the role of inheritances and bequests in shaping household decisions on wealth accumulation.
Health Status and Family Support of the Elderly
This project examines the role of health status in determining familial support for the elderly in the United States using two new nationally representative panel surveys.
The Value of Medicare
Wave three of the Health and Retirement Study had some experimental questions about how individuals value Medicare. The exploratory project has analyzed these data and related the variation to household characteristics such as wealth, and private holdings of health care insurance.
Grandparents and Grandchildren
This project characterizes and investigates the determinants of grandparents' involvement in regular care for grandchildren over the course of childhood.
Social Change and Intergenerational Exchange.
Methodology and Data Collection
Health and Wealth of Elderly Couples: Causality Tests Using Dynamic Panel Data Models
Increases in Wealth Among the Elderly in the Early 1990s: How Much is Due to Survey Design?
Models for Anchoring and Acquiescence Bias in Consumption Data
A Test for Anchoring and Yea-Saying in Experimental Consumption Data
Selection Bias in Web Surveys and the Use of Propensity Scores
Internet Interviewing and the HRS
The major goal of the project is to investigate the potential for internet interviewing in the Health and Retirement Study.
Health and Retirement Study (HRS)
This project collects data needed to understand the dynamics of health and work in the cohorts born in 1931-1941.
Improving Modeling Behavioral Responses to Policy Change: Microsimulations in the Presence of Heterogeneity
This project improved researchers' ability to conduct more realistic policy-related microsimulations by incorporating heterogeneity in behavioral outcomes and ultimately to better account for behavioral responses to policy change using microsimulation models which incorporate correlation among behavioral outcomes.
Experiments to Measure Consumption and Attitudes
The aim of this project is to use experimental survey techniques to assess the reliability of data obtained from established survey questions regarding household consumption expenditure and attitudes, and to explore alternative formulations.
Integrating Approaches and Identifying Gaps
The primary aim of this project is to exploit the synergies between several retirement projects and evaluate and integrate the contribution of different approaches to modeling retirement. We will identify in which directions new research is likely to be most fruitful. New and experimental data will be collected to address as yet unanswered questions related to retirement.
Public Dissemination of the RAND-HRS Data
This project publicly disseminates and supports a user-friendly version of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The data were prepared with support from the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration.
Modeling and Estimating Anchoring in Economic Data
This project assesses the effects of bracketing and anchoring on measurement in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS.)
Providing Case Data for Evaluation and Other Research
The Social Security Administration maintains a number of files with data on individuals for the administration of several benefit programs. In addition to their operational function, these data files are useful for research purposes. This project documents and develops procedures to create data files and tabulations of administrative data files in support of such research.
Adult Health and Health Care Utilization
Indonesian Family Life Survey of Aging Dynamics
The Third Indonesian Family Life Survey
This project designs and fields the third wave of a public-use longitudinal household and community-facility survey, the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS3).
Microsimulations in the Presence of Heterogeneity
This project improves researchers' ability to conduct more realistic policy-related microsimulations by incorporating heterogeneity in behavioral outcomes and ultimately to better account for behavioral responses to policy change using microsimulation models which incorporate correlation among behavioral outcomes.
Population Matters
The major goal of this project is to raise awareness of population issues with policymakers and the general public by disseminating the results of policy relevant research in audience-friendly ways.
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