http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/49331 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:35:48 GMT 2013-06-19T19:35:48Z http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/98096 Retirement in Japan and the United States: Cross-national Comparisons using the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR) and the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS) Mitchell, Olivia S.; Phillips, John W.R. Cross-national comparisons of data from developed countries offer useful insights into the retirement process and policy. Here we summarize findings for older persons age 50-70 using new microdata files collected by the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR) project, and we compare these with results in the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We examine the relative importance of health, wealth, family, and other factors in work and retirement at older ages cross-nationally. Though both countries have relatively high employment at older ages, the Japanese have longer life expectancy, higher levels of financial wealth, and a lower public pension eligibility age. Our analysis, the first to compare these two rich data sources, suggests two conclusions (subject to revision when data weights become available). First, older Americans differ in key ways from their Japanese counterparts, particularly along educational, health, and wealth dimensions. Second, in some cases, there is a distinctly different impact of these factors on labor force outcomes. Specifically, age, sex, education, and wealth influence behavior differently across the two countries, though being obese or having better mental acuity/financial literacy scores has no differential impact. Thus observed differences in work patterns between Americans and Japanese at older ages are attributable to some identifiable factors; moreover, the results can be used to project future responses to changes in education, age, health, and wealth in order to account for the large differences in older workers’ work patterns at older ages in Japan and the US. Working Paper: WP 2012-270 Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/98096 2012-10-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/97020 Exchanging Delayed Social Security Benefits for Lump Sums: Could This Incentivize Longer Work Careers? Chai, Jingjing; Maurer, Raimond; Mitchell, Olivia S.; Rogalla, Ralph Social Security benefits are currently provided as a lifelong benefit stream, though some workers would be willing to trade a portion of their annuity streams in exchange for a lump sum amount. This paper explores whether allowing people to receive a lump sum as a payment for delayed retirement rather than as an addition to their lifetime Social Security benefits might induce them to work longer. We model the factors that influence how people trade off a Social Security stream for a lump sum, and we also examine the consequences of such tradeoffs for work, retirement, and life cycle wellbeing. Our base case indicates that workers given the chance to receive their delayed retirement credit as a lump sum payment would boost their average retirement age by l.5-2 years. This will interest policymakers seeking to reform the Social Security system without raising costs or cutting benefits, while enhancing the incentives to delay retirement. Working Paper 2012-266 Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/97020 2012-10-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/97019 Personality Traits and Economic Preparation for Retirement Hurd, Michael D.; Duckworth, Angela Lee; Rohwedder, Susann; Weir, David R. This paper assesses the effects of personality traits on economic preparation for retirement, wealth accumulation, and consumption, among persons 66 to 69 years of age. Among the five chief personality traits of neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, we focus most on conscientiousness. We find levels of adequate economic preparation for retirement ranging from 29 percent to 90 percent and that conscientiousness positively affects the proportion of persons adequately prepared for retirement, while neuroticism negatively affects it. Both consumption and wealth increase with conscientiousness but wealth increases faster, indicating that more conscientious persons save more out of retirement resources. Working paper: WP2012-279 Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/97019 2012-09-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/95914 At the Corner of Main and Wall Street: Family Pension Responses to Liquidity Change and Perceived Returns Bridges, Thomas; Stafford, Frank P. The U. S. economy experienced a shift away from employment with coverage under a defined benefit (DB) pension plan during 1991-2009. Defined contribution (DC) plan coverage seems not to have risen much, if at all, for married men in the recent decade. Overall, the percent of the labor force covered by any pension type fell over the period 2001-2009, with most of the shift occurring in 2001-2003, as indicated by data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). We seek to determine the factors that lead families to lose or gain DC coverage and to put money into their private pensions or to draw money out of private pensions and annuities prior to age 65. The importance of such discretionary participation and savings responses is accentuated by both the presence of DC pensions, and, presumably, learning that such pensions can be used to stabilize finances prior to retirement. Besides the impact of the overall economic climate, individual, family level events and cash flow changes are expected to play a role in the decision to add to or withdraw from a DC pension plan. Preliminary studies suggest that the savings response by households to recent economic uncertainties during 2009-2011, was greater overall savings and an increase in liquid asset holding, a result consistent with classic predictions of a response to economic turmoil. Overall, pension fund inflows have not been a part of the increase in private saving in the Great Recession. Working Paper: WP 2012-282 Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/95914 2012-12-01T00:00:00Z