Papers Containing Keywords(s): 'pension'
The following papers contain search terms that you selected. From the papers listed below, you can navigate to the PDF, the profile page for that working paper, or see all the working papers written by an author. You can also explore tags, keywords, and authors that occur frequently within these papers.
See Working Papers by Tag(s), Keywords(s), Author(s), or Search Text
Click here to search again
Frequently Occurring Concepts within this Search
Authors
Alice Zawacki - 3
Kristin McCue - 3
Viewing papers 1 through 10 of 16
-
Working PaperMeasuring Income of the Aged in Household Surveys: Evidence from Linked Administrative Records
June 2024
Working Paper Number:
CES-24-32
Research has shown that household survey estimates of retirement income (defined benefit pensions and defined contribution account withdrawals) suffer from substantial underreporting which biases downward measures of financial well-being among the aged. Using data from both the redesigned 2016 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), each matched with administrative records, we examine to what extent underreporting of retirement income affects key statistics such as reliance on Social Security benefits and poverty among the aged. We find that underreporting of retirement income is still prevalent in the CPS ASEC. While the HRS does a better job than the CPS ASEC in terms of capturing retirement income, it still falls considerably short compared to administrative records. Consequently, the relative importance of Social Security income remains overstated in household surveys'53 percent of elderly beneficiaries in the CPS ASEC and 49 percent in the HRS rely on Social Security for the majority of their incomes compared to 42 percent in the linked administrative data. The poverty rate for those aged 65 and over is also overstated'8.8 percent in the CPS ASEC and 7.4 percent in the HRS compared to 6.4 percent in the linked administrative data. Our results illustrate the effects of using alternative data sources in producing key statistics from the Social Security Administration's Income of the Aged publication.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperEclipse of Rent-Sharing: The Effects of Managers' Business Education on Wages and the Labor Share in the US and Denmark
December 2022
Working Paper Number:
CES-22-58
This paper provides evidence from the US and Denmark that managers with a business degree ('business managers") reduce their employees' wages. Within five years of the appointment of a business manager, wages decline by 6% and the labor share by 5 percentage points in the US, and by 3% and 3 percentage points in Denmark. Firms appointing business managers are not on differential trends and do not enjoy higher output, investment, or employment growth thereafter. Using manager retirements and deaths and an IV strategy based on the diffusion of the practice of appointing business managers within industry, region and size quartile cells, we provide additional evidence that these are causal effects. We establish that the proximate cause of these (relative) wage effects are changes in rent-sharing practices following the appointment of business managers. Exploiting exogenous export demand shocks, we show that non-business managers share profits with their workers, whereas business managers do not. But consistent with our first set of results, these business managers show no greater ability to increase sales or profits in response to exporting opportunities. Finally, we use the influence of role models on college major choice to instrument for the decision to enroll in a business degree in Denmark and show that our estimates correspond to causal effects of practices and values acquired in business education--rather than the differential selection into business education of individuals unlikely to share rents with workers.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperWhy are employer-sponsored health insurance premiums higher in the public sector than in the private sector?
February 2019
Working Paper Number:
CES-19-03
In this article, we examine the factors explaining differences in public and private sector health insurance premiums for enrollees with single coverage. We use data from the 2000 and 2014 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance Component, along with decomposition methods, to explore the relative explanatory importance of plan features and benefit generosity, such as deductibles and other forms of cost sharing, basic employee characteristics (e.g., age, gender, and education), and unionization. While there was little difference in public and private sector premiums in 2000, by 2014, public premiums had exceeded private premiums by 14 to 19 percent. We find that differences in plan characteristics played a substantial role in explaining premium differences in 2014, but they were not the only, or even the most important, factor. Differences in worker age, gender, marital status, and educational attainment were also important factors, as was workforce unionization.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperWorkplace Characteristics and Employment of Older Workers
September 2012
Working Paper Number:
CES-12-31
As aging of the U.S. population places increased demands on public programs such as Social Security, an important question is how long older Americans are willing and able to work before they retire from the labor force. While studies based on household surveys have provided information on the role of savings, health status, pension and health insurance coverage, there is relatively little information on how workplace and employer characteristics affect the employment of older workers. In this study we use linked employer-employee data to explore the relationship between the characteristics of jobs held at age 55 and early retirement. We focus on a sample of 63-year-olds drawn from the 2005-2008 American Community Survey. We match this sample to information on their earnings, employment, employers and coworkers drawn from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data for the years in which they age from 55 to 63. We use employment status as reported in the ACS to split the sample into those who have retired by age 63 and those who continue to work. We then examine differences between early retirees and continuing workers in the characteristics of their employment at age 55, and at how these characteristics change as they approach age 63. We find that early retirees are more likely to be employed by larger employers at age 55 than are continuers. They work for employers with somewhat higher pay than do continuers, and are less likely to have young coworkers.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperChanges in Firm Pension Policy: Trends Away from Traditional Defined Benefit Plans
November 2011
Working Paper Number:
CES-11-36
In light of the recent concerns regarding the solvency of Social Security's Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI), private pensions may play an increasingly important role in retirement welfare of US retirees. However, the private pension landscape has evolved in ways that may result in lower private pension wealth for retirees. One recent such phenomenon involves the conversion of traditional defined benefit pension plans to cash balance plans, which resulted in lower pension benefits for many workers. In this study, I investigate how characteristics of the firm's workforce influenced whether the firm converted their traditional pension plan to a cash balance plan and how these characteristics related to the firm's pension plan policy more generally. Using the Longitudinal Employer-Household Data and pension plan data from the Department of Labor/Internal Revenue Service and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, I found little evidence of workforce age distribution effects on the likelihood of DB plan conversion to a cash balance plan in the 1990s. More generally, I consistently find positive associations between firms with older and more female workforces and defined contribution plans during the same time.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperDid Vietnam Veterans Get Sicker in the 1990s? The Complicated Effects of Military Service on Self-Reported Health
August 2009
Working Paper Number:
CES-09-19
The veterans disability compensation (VDC) program, which provides a monthly stipend to disabled veterans, is the third largest American disability insurance program. Since the late 1990s, VDC growth has been driven primarily by an increase in claims from Vietnam veterans, raising concerns about costs as well as health. We use the draft lottery to study the long-term effects of Vietnam-era military service on health and work in the 2000 Census. These estimates show no significant overall effects on employment or work-related disability status, with a small effect on non-work-related disability for whites. On the other hand, estimates for white men with low earnings potential show a large negative impact on employment and a marked increase in non-work-related disability rates. The differential impact of Vietnam-era service on low-skill men cannot be explained by more combat or war-theatre exposure for the least educated, leaving the relative attractiveness of VDC for less skilled men and the work disincentives embedded in the VDC system as a likely explanation.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperA Comparison of Employee Benefits Data from the MEPS-IC and Form 5500
September 2008
Working Paper Number:
CES-08-32
This paper compares data on employers\u2019 health and pension offerings from the two sources: publicly available administrative data from Form 5500 filings and survey data from the Insurance Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-IC). The basic findings are that the 5500 filings cover too few health plans to be very useful as a substitute or supplement to the MEPS-IC measure of whether or not employers offer health insurance. The pension information in the 5500 filings is potentially more useful as a supplement to the MEPSIC for research purposes where additional pension information would be useful in studying employers\u2019 decisions to offer health insurance.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperLong-Term Effects of Vietnam-Era Conscription: Schooling, Experience and Earnings
August 2007
Working Paper Number:
CES-07-23
Instrumental variables (IV) estimates using the draft lottery show that white Vietnam-era draftees suffered substantial post-service earnings losses in the 1970s and 1980s. Angrist (1990) explains these losses as due primarily to lost labor market experience. Non-public use data from the 2000 Census allow the first longerterm follow-up for a large sample from the draft-lottery cohorts. We use these data to estimate the effects of military service on earnings, schooling, and a number of other variables. Consistent with the loss-of -experience model, IV estimates of the effects of Vietnam-era service on earnings are close to zero in 2000, when the draft-lottery cohorts were middle-aged and experience profiles relatively flat. On the other hand, draft-lottery estimates show a marked increase in schooling for Vietnam-era veterans. A variety of evidence suggests this increase reflects the impact of the Vietnam-era GI Bill more than draft-avoidance behavior. The economic return to the increased schooling generated by Vietnam-era service, estimated in a wage equation that constrains the impact of Vietnam-era military service to run solely through the experience and schooling channels, appears to be less than the OLS return. Finally, we look at measures of disability. The IV estimates point to an increase in non-workrelated disability rates and non-SSA disability income, but the fact that there is no corresponding effect on employment, hours worked, or work-related disability rates suggests health was affected little by Vietnam-era service. Allowing for excess disability among veterans raises the estimated returns to GI-Bill schooling slightly.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperLabor Market Rigidities and the Employment Behavior of Older Workers
July 2007
Working Paper Number:
CES-07-21
The labor market is often asserted to be characterized by rigidities that make it difficult for older workers to carry out their desired trajectory from work to retirement. An important source of rigidity is restrictions on hours of work imposed by firms that use team production or face high fixed costs of employment. Such rigidities are difficult to measure directly. We develop a model of the labor market in which technological rigidity affects the age structure of a firm's work force in equilibrium. Firms using relatively flexible technology care only about total hours of labor input, but not hours of work per worker. Older workers with a desire for short or flexible hours of work are attracted to such firms. Firms using a more rigid technology involving team production impose a minimum hours constraint, and as a result tend to have a younger age structure. A testable hypothesis of the model is that the hazard of separation of older workers is lower in firms with an older age structure. We use matched worker-firm data to test this hypothesis, and find support for it. Specification tests and alternative proxies for labor market rigidity support our interpretation of the effect of firm age structure on the separation propensity These results provide indirect but suggestive evidence of the importance of labor market rigidities.View Full Paper PDF
-
Working PaperOlder Workers' Access to Employer-Sponsored Retiree Health Insurance, 2000-2004
April 2007
Working Paper Number:
CES-07-12
Using a multivariate framework, we analyze recent trends in employer provision of retiree health insurance (RHI), eligibility for new retirees, and retiree contribution requirements. We also explore whether local labor market characteristics such as the unemployment rate influence RHI provision. Finally, we examine whether the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) was associated with diverging trends in RHI access for Medicare-eligible and early retirees. Data come for the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey'Insurance Component (MEPS-IC). We find that, while RHI provision to existing retirees remained stable, eligibility for new retirees declined, and contribution requirements increased between 2000 and 2004. The local labor market had no effect on RHI provision. While early retiree coverage was more common than coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees, we did not find a divergence subsequent to MMA. These results suggest growing financial instability for retirees, both because RHI contribution requirements increased, and because businesses dropped coverage for new retirees.View Full Paper PDF
