Predicting quantity and quality of life with the Future Elderly Model.

The Future Elderly Model (FEM) is a microsimulation model designed to forecast health status, longevity, and a variety of economic outcomes. Compared to traditional actuarial models, microsimulation models provide greater opportunities for policy forecasting and richer detail, but they typically build upon smaller samples of data that may mitigate forecasting accuracy. We perform validation analyses of the FEM's mortality and quality of life forecasts using a version of the FEM estimated exclusively on early waves of data from the Health and Retirement Study.

Quantifying the Life-Cycle Benefits of an Influential Early-Childhood Program.

This paper quantifies and aggregates the multiple lifetime benefits of an influential high-quality early childhood program with outcomes measured through midlife. Guided by economic theory, we supplement experimental data with non-experimental data to forecast the life-cycle benefits and costs of the program. Our point estimate of the internal rate of return is 13.

Computer scoring of the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale.

The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS; Lane, Quinlan, Schwartz, Walker, & Zeitlan, 1990) is the most commonly used measure of differentiation and complexity in the use of emotion words and is associated with important clinical outcomes. Hand scoring the LEAS is time consuming. Existing programs for scoring open-ended responses cannot mimic LEAS hand scoring.