Susann Rohwedder

Associate Director, RAND Center for the Study of Aging; Senior Economist; Professor of Economics, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Santa Monica Office

Education

Ph.D., M.A. in economics, University College London; M.S. in economics, University of Warwick

Media Resources

This researcher is available for interviews.

To arrange an interview, contact the RAND Office of Media Relations at (310) 451-6913, or email media@rand.org.

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Overview

Susann Rohwedder (she/her) is a senior economist at RAND, associate director of the RAND Center for the Study of Aging, and professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research focuses on the economics of aging in the areas of household consumption and saving behavior, retirement, long-term care and the prevalence of dementia, expectation formation, and subjective well-being.

Rohwedder has written on the impact of public pensions on household saving; the adequacy of retirement resources and spending and saving patterns of U.S. households; the effect of retirement on cognition; the lifetime risk of dementia and nursing home entry and associated out-of-pocket expenditures; and various topics involving individuals' expectations about future outcomes. Other papers deal with data quality and survey methods. Rohwedder has extensive experience in survey design and data collection: she is jointly responsible for the design of the HRS Consumption and Activities Mail Survey, led the design and collection of over 60 waves for the Financial Crisis Surveys fielded on the RAND American Life Panel, and played a leading role in the design and establishment of the the Singapore Life Panel.

Rohwedder is a research fellow of NETSPAR (Network for Studies on Pensions, Aging, and Retirement) in the Netherlands, serves on the Board of Directors of the Western Economics Association International and is associate editor of the Journal of the Economics of Ageing. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from University College London, and Master's degrees from the University of Warwick and the Sorbonne in Paris.

Research Focus

Concurrent Non-RAND Positions

Research Fellow, NETSPAR; Researcher, Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Center; Associate Editor, Journal of the Economics of Ageing

Previous Positions

Research Scholar, Institute for Fiscal Studies, London

Recent Projects

Economic well-being at older ages
Spending patterns of the older population
Trends in inequalities in dementia prevalence
Expectation formation about retirement resources and retirement planning

Selected Publications

Hudomiet, Péter, Michael D. Hurd, Susann Rohwedder, "Trends in Inequalities in the Prevalence of Dementia in the U.S.," Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, 119(46), 2022

Hudomiet, Péter, Michael D. Hurd, Susann Rohwedder, "The age profile of life satisfaction after age 65 in the U.S.," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 189, 2021

Jim Been, Susann Rohwedder and Michael D. Hurd, "Does Home Production Replace Consumption Spending? Evidence from Shocks in Housing Wealth in the Great Recession," Review of Economics and Statistics, 2018

Michael D. Hurd, Pierr-Carl Michaud and Susann Rohwedder, "Distribution of lifetime nursing home use and of out‐of‐pocket spending," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(37), 2017

Delavande, Adeline and Susann Rohwedder, "Differential Survival in Europe and the United States: Estimates Based on Subjective Probabilities of Survival," Demography, 48(4), 2011

Rohwedder, Susann and Robert J. Willis, "Mental Retirement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(1), 2010

Delavande, Adeline and Susann Rohwedder, "Eliciting Subjective Probabilities in Internet Surveys," Public Opinion Quarterly, 72(5), 2008

Attanasio, Orazio P. and Susann Rohwedder, "Pension Wealth and Household Saving: Evidence from Pension Reforms in the United Kingdom," American Economic Review, 93(5), 2003

Honors & Awards

Research Fellow, NETSPAR (Network for Studies on Pensions, Aging and Retirement)
Bronze Merit Award (2010, 2016), RAND

Languages

German; French

Recent Media Appearances

Interviews: SMU ENGAGE, Singapore; TheStreet

Commentary

Living Longer, Working Longer
When people live longer, the costs of Social Security and Medicare increase and threaten the sustainability of these programs. Households also worry about how to finance more retirement years. But people are working longer, and if they continue to do so, they will reduce some of the problems.
Aug 25, 2016
The RAND Blog
One in Five Hourly Employees Working Overtime Not Properly Compensated
Most laws as old as the Fair Labor Standards Act regularly need tuning up. But its overtime provisions are complicated because some workers are exempt from being covered. A survey of more than 1,500 employed adults finds that employers are violating the rules.
Sep 4, 2015
The RAND Blog

Publications

Report
Spending Trajectories After Age 65: Variation by Initial Wealth
This report presents estimates of household spending trajectories from age 65 through the retirement years and how the trajectories vary by initial wealth position. The results help to anticipate and plan for household spending needs at older ages.
Dec 5, 2022
Journal Article
Saving Regret and Procrastination
Saving regret, or the wish in hindsight to have saved more earlier in life, is widespread in older populations. Little of the variation is explained by procrastination and psychological factors. Unemployment, health, and divorce are larger factors.
Nov 23, 2022
Tool
RAND HRS Longitudinal File 2018 (V2) Documentation: Includes 1992-2018 (Final Release)
This tool is a cleaned, easy-to-use, and streamlined data product containing information from the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal household survey that facilitates research into different aspects of population aging in the United States.
Aug 9, 2022
Journal Article
Financial Literacy and Financial Decision-Making at Older Ages
This paper examines how financial literacy is associated with three types of financial decisions pertinent to older individuals: adherence to timely credit card repayment, stock market participation, and risk diversification of household assets.
Feb 9, 2021
Report
RAND Behavioral Finance Forum: Financial Security Over the Lifespan
Video compilation of the 2020 Behavioral Finance Forum (BeFi). Leaders from academia, government, regulatory agencies, and industry were invited to share the latest research and exchange ideas on the theme of financial security over the lifespan.
Feb 2, 2021
Draft
The Age Profile of Life-Satisfaction After Age 65 in the U.S.
Examines the age profile of life satisfaction of the U.S. population age 65 and older in the Health and Retirement Study to corroborate the view of increasing life satisfaction at older ages based on cross-sectional data.
Nov 11, 2020
Journal Article
The Effects of Job Characteristics on Retirement
We present results from a survey fielded in the RAND American Life Panel. The survey queried older workers about their current,desired, and expected job characteristics, and about how certain characteristics would affect their retirement decisions.
Sep 29, 2020
Journal Article
The Effect of Housing Wealth Losses on Spending in the Great Recession
This article represents the first U.S. study employing exclusively household-level longitudinal data spanning the Great Recession to estimate the response of household spending to negative wealth shocks induced by the sharp declines in house prices.
Sep 20, 2019
Journal Article
The Relationship Between Lifetime Out-of-Pocket Medical Expenditures, Dementia, and Socioeconomic Status in the U.S.
This paper estimates cumulative lifetime medical expenditures that can be attributed to the onset of dementia using a nationally representative longitudinal survey from the U.S., the Health and Retirement Study.
Dec 18, 2018
Draft
Measuring Probability Numeracy
Explores different batteries of questions to measure levels of probability numeracy, the ability of individuals to think in probabilistic terms and use probabilities effectively in everyday life.
Sep 25, 2018
Research Brief
Many Americans Follow Nontraditional Paths to Retirement: Cognitive Ability and Personality Traits Influence This Process
Most U.S. seniors follow nonstandard retirement pathways. Seniors with better cognitive ability were more likely to follow nonstandard retirement pathways: In a studied sample, 59.1 percent of those with high cognitive ability had a job after age 65.
Jul 30, 2018
Journal Article
Dementia Prevalence in the United States in 2000 and 2012: Estimates Based on a Nationally Representative Study
The prevalence of dementia in the U.S. among those 65 or older decreased between 2000 and 2012, although less rapidly than reported in other studies.
May 1, 2018
Journal Article
Cognitive Ability, Personality, and Pathways to Retirement: An Exploratory Study
This paper explores the utility of two prominent psychological variables - cognitive ability and personality - as predictors, while also substantially expanding the detail with which retirement pathways can be characterized.
Apr 3, 2018
Journal Article
Does Home Production Replace Consumption Spending? Evidence from Shocks in Housing Wealth in the Great Recession
This paper sheds new light on the importance of home production in welfare analyses by focusing on the elasticity of substitution estimated over the retired population, thus holding constant non-work time, but also on the share of spending that is potentially substitutable.
2018
Journal Article
Financial Knowledge and Portfolio Complexity in Singapore
This paper reports the first analysis of older Singaporeans' financial literacy using a unique new dataset, the Singapore Life Panel (SLP®).
2018
Journal Article
High-frequency Internet Survey of a Probability Sample of Older Singaporeans: The Singapore Life Panel®
We detail the methodology by which the Singapore Life Panel was constructed using a population-representative sampling frame from the Singapore Department of Statistics.
2018
Journal Article
Changes in Spending and Labor Supply in Response to a Social Security Benefit Cut: Evidence from Stated Choice Data
The results of this study provide unique information on individuals' responses to a Social Security reform that would implement a 30 percent cut in benefits.
Dec 1, 2017
Journal Article
Distribution of Lifetime Nursing Home Use and of Out-of-Pocket Spending
By following individuals over many years as they progress to advanced old age, we estimated how many days individuals will spend in nursing homes and how much they will spend out-of-pocket.
Aug 29, 2017
Journal Article
Personality and Employment Transitions at Older Ages: Direct and Indirect Effects Through Non-Monetary Job Characteristics
We assess the extent to which personality traits are directly associated with labor force transitions at older ages and moderate the effect of non-monetary job characteristics on retirement decisions.
Aug 18, 2017
Draft
Improved Wealth Measures in the Health and Retirement Study: Asset Reconciliation and Cross-Wave Imputation
Presents improved wealth measures for the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which aim to reduce the effect of observation error on wealth levels and changes in wealth.
Apr 27, 2016
Draft
The Impact of Employment Transitions on Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from the Great Recession and Its Aftermath
Using data from the Financial Crisis Surveys collected in the American Life Panel, this study estimates the causal effect of work transitions, in particular unemployment and reemployment, on subjective well-being between November 2009 and April 2013 in the US.
Nov 17, 2015
Draft
The Fair Labor Standards Act: Worker Misclassification and the Hours and Earnings Effects of Expanded Coverage
Using data from the RAND American Life Panel, this paper quantifies the frequency that employers violate the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act's overtime rules.
Aug 28, 2015
Draft
The Effect of Housing and Stock Wealth Losses on Spending in the Great Recession
Uses panel data at the household level on a complete inventory of household spending and assets to estimate the spending response to the sharp and largely unexpected declines in house and stock market prices that occurred in the Great Recession.
Jun 15, 2015
Research Brief
More Americans May Be Adequately Prepared for Retirement Than Previously Thought
Because spending in retirement tends to decline with age, a new study finds that 71 percent of Americans are adequately prepared for retirement: 81 percent of married persons and 57 percent of single persons. Women are less prepared than men.
Jul 31, 2014
Draft
How Do Management Fees Affect Retirement Wealth Under Mexico’s Personal Retirement Accounts System?
Examines changes in retirement wealth resulting from Mexico's transformation from its pay-as-you-go social-security system to a fully funded system with personal retirement accounts, including management fees.
Jan 29, 2014
Journal Article
How Do Management Fees Affect Retirement Wealth Under Mexico's Personal Retirement Accounts System?
In 1997, Mexico transformed its pay-as-you-go social security system to a fully funded system with personal retirement accounts, including management fees. This article examines changes in retirement wealth resulting from this new system.
2014
Journal Article
Heterogeneity in Spending Change at Retirement
The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires that consumption be continuous over retirement; yet prior research based on partial measures of consumption or on synthetic panels indicates that spending drops at retirement, a result that has been called the retirement-consumption puzzle.
Nov 1, 2013
Draft
Measuring Total Household Spending in a Monthly Internet Survey: Evidence from the American Life Panel
Reports on the outcomes of a monthly Internet survey designed to measure total household spending as the aggregate of about 40 spending components.
Jul 20, 2012
Draft
Stock Price Expectations and Stock Trading
Analyzes the relationships between actual stock market price changes and the subjective probability of price changes, and between the subjective probability of price changes and the likelihood of engaging in stock trading.
Jul 20, 2012
Journal Article
Economic Preparation for Retirement
The overall goal of this chapter is to assess economic preparation for retirement in a way that addresses many of the deficiencies of the income replacement rate concept.
2012
Draft
Economic Preparation for Retirement
Defines and estimates measures of economic preparation for retirement based on an inventory of economic resources while taking into account the risk of living to advanced old age and the risk of high out-of-pocket spending for health care services.
Sep 27, 2011
Draft
Effects of the Financial Crisis and Great Recession on American Households
Presents evidence from high-frequency data collections dedicated to tracking the effects of the financial crisis and great recession on American households.
Nov 23, 2010
Draft
Individuals' Uncertainty about Future Social Security Benefits and Portfolio Choice
Presents empirical evidence from the Health and Retirement Study Internet Survey and documents systematic variation in respondents' uncertainty about their future Social Security benefits by individual characteristics.
Sep 21, 2010
Periodical
RAND Review: Vol. 34, No. 2, Summer 2010
Features discuss retirement patterns of baby boomers, marijuana legalization, drug enforcement in Europe, and No Child Left Behind; news items cover the Gulf coast, food allergies, the U.S. health reform law, police benefits, and Pakistani militants.
Aug 14, 2010
Periodical
RAND Review: Vol. 34, No. 1, Spring 2010
Features discuss energy strategies for Israel, the economic recession, and Iran's leadership; other items discuss the KC-10 fleet, air pollution and hospital costs, no-fault insurance, silica litigation, poverty reduction, and political polarization.
Apr 9, 2010
Draft
Mental Retirement
Using cross-nationally comparable surveys of older persons in the United States, England, and 11 European countries, this paper proposes two mechanisms how retirement may lead to cognitive decline.
Nov 5, 2009
Report
Helping Each Other in Times of Need: Financial Help as a Means of Coping with the Economic Crisis
Reports survey findings on patterns of giving and receiving financial help among U.S. households in response to the economic crisis, and how these patterns vary by age and income.
May 22, 2009
Draft
Methodological Innovations in Collecting Spending Data: The HRS Consumption and Activities Mail Survey
Examines issues that arise designing a survey module to collect spending data with strict time constraints.
Dec 17, 2008
Draft
Using International Micro Data to Learn about Individuals' Responses to Changes in Social Insurance
Examines the scope of cross-country variation in institutions related to social insurance.
Nov 24, 2008
Draft
Differential Mortality in Europe and the U.S. Estimates Based on Subjective Probabilities of Survival
Proposes a new, less data-intensive approach relying on just a single cross-section of data to obtain reliable estimates of differential mortatlity in Europe and the United States.
Sep 8, 2008
Periodical
RAND Review: Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer 2008
The cover story contains 11 essays that forecast 11 ''issues over the horizon''; other articles discuss the invisible wounds of war, visions of the future, colleges in prisons, and nuclear deterrence for the modern age.
Aug 1, 2008
Draft
Eliciting Subjective Expectations in Internet Surveys
Presents findings from a test of an innovative visual representation of an Internet survey in the context of individuals' Social Security expectations.
Jun 26, 2008
Draft
Prediction of Latent Variables in a Mixture of Structural Equation Models, with an Application to the Discrepancy Between Survey and Register Data
Studies the prediction of latent variables in a finite mixture of linear structural equation models.
Jun 13, 2008
Draft
The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: Actual Spending Change in Panel Data
Examines panel data on total spending, nondurable spending, and food spending to explain patterns of decline in consumption for U.S. and British households after their members retire.
Apr 24, 2008
Draft
Time-Use in the Older Population: Variation by Socio-economic Status and Health
Presents data from the Health and Retirement Study, representative of the U.S. population age 51 and over, on time-use: paid work, housework, leisure, personal care, sleep, exercise, managing finances, time at computer, socializing, and volunteering.
Mar 21, 2007
Draft
Economic Well-Being at Older Ages: Income- and Consumption-Based Poverty Measures in the HRS
Finds that the poverty rate based on consumption is lower than the income-based poverty rate, particularly for older single persons such as widows. The explanation for the difference is the ability to consume out of wealth.
Jan 11, 2007
Draft
Some Answers to The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle
Examines models of economic behavior to explain patterns of decline in consumption for U.S. and British households after their members retire.
Feb 6, 2006
Draft
The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: Anticipated and Actual Declines in Spending at Retirement
Apr 4, 2005
Draft
Increases in Wealth among the Elderly in the Early 1990s: How Much is Due to Survey Design?
Nov 23, 2004
Journal Article
Life-cycle Saving Patterns and Pension Arrangements in the U.K.
The authors discuss in detail pension arrangements and their evolution over time.
2003
Journal Article
Pensions and Life-Cycle Savings Profiles in the UK
The goal of this chapter is to provide comparable evidence, based on microeconomic data sources, regarding the lifetimes savings profiles of households in the UK.
2003
Report
Pension Wealth and Household Saving: Evidence from Pension Reforms in the United Kingdom
Using three major U.K. pension reforms as natural experiments, the authors investigate the relationship between pension saving and discretionary private savings.
2003
Draft
The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle: Anticipated and Actual Declines in Spending at Retirement
The authors find that data on anticipated consumption changes at retirement and on realized consumption changes following retirement show that reductions in consumption at retirement are fully anticipated.
2003