Using the Health and Retirement Study for Research on the Impact of the Working Conditions on the Individual Life Course.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the utility of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) for studying the impact of working conditions on individuals' health, well-being and labor supply decisions at older ages. I provide a brief overview of the information on working conditions that is currently available in the HRS and discuss implications for studies on the effects of working conditions on the individual life course. I conclude with a discussion of how recent and projected trends in the U.

The effect of economic conditions on the disability insurance program: Evidence from the great recession.

We examine the effect of job displacement during the Great Recession on the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. Exploiting variation in the severity and timing of the recession across states, we estimate the effect of unemployment on SSDI applications and awards. We find the Great Recession induced nearly one million SSDI applications that otherwise would not have been filed, of which 41.

How Much Do Outside Options Matter? The Effect of Subsidized Health Insurance on Social Security Disability Insurance Benefit Receipt.

New government health insurance programs may affect participation in existing safety-net benefits that provide health insurance as a secondary aim. We examine whether the outside options for health insurance made available by the Affordable Care Act affected Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) application decisions. Using the universe of U.

Unmet Need for Workplace Accommodation.

We use experimental survey methods in a nationally representative survey to test alternative ways of identifying (1) individuals in the population who would be better able to work if they received workplace accommodation for a health condition; (2) the rate at which these individuals receive workplace accommodation; and (3) the rate at which accommodated workers are still working four years later, compared to similar workers who were not accommodated. We find that question order in disability surveys matters. We present suggestive evidence of priming effects that lead people to understate accommodation when first asked about work-limiting health problems.

Disability Benefit Generosity and Labor Force Withdrawal.

A key component for estimating the optimal size and structure of disability insurance (DI) programs is the elasticity of DI claiming with respect to benefit generosity. Yet, in many countries, including the United States, all workers face identical benefit schedules, which are a function of one's labor market history, making it difficult to separate the effect of the benefit level from the effect of unobserved preferences for work on individuals' claiming decisions. To circumvent this problem, we exploit exogenous variation in DI benefits in Austria arising from several reforms to its DI and old age pension system in the 1990s and 2000s.

Employer Accommodation and Labor Supply of Disabled Workers.

We examine the factors that influence employer accommodation of newly disabled workers and how effective such accommodations are in retaining workers and discouraging disability insurance applications. Using the Health and Retirement Study, we find that only a quarter of newly disabled older workers in their 50s are accommodated by their employers in some way following onset of a disability. Importantly, we find that few employer characteristics explain which workers are accommodated; rather, employee characteristics, particularly the presence of personality traits correlated with assertiveness and open communication, are highly predictive of accommodation.

POLICY VARIATION, LABOR SUPPLY ELASTICITIES, AND A STRUCTURAL MODEL OF RETIREMENT.

This paper exploits a combination of policy variation from multiple pension reforms in Austria and administrative data from the Austrian Social Security Database. Using the policy changes for identification, we estimate social security wealth and accrual elasticities in individuals' retirement decisions. Next, we use these elasticities to estimate a dynamic programming model of retirement decisions.

Monetary costs of dementia in the United States.

Background: Dementia affects a large and growing number of older adults in the United States. The monetary costs attributable to dementia are likely to be similarly large and to continue to increase.

Methods: In a subsample (856 persons) of the population in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative longitudinal study of older adults, the diagnosis of dementia was determined with the use of a detailed in-home cognitive assessment that was 3 to 4 hours in duration and a review by an expert panel.

What Explains the Gender Gap in Financial Literacy? The Role of Household Decision Making.

Using newly collected data from the RAND American Life Panel, we examine potential explanations for the gender gap in financial literacy, including the role of marriage and who within a couple makes the financial decisions. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition reveals the majority of the gender gap in financial literacy is not explained by differences in the characteristics of men and women-but rather differences in coefficients, or how literacy is produced. We find that financial decision making of couples is not centralized in one spouse although it is sensitive to the relative education level of spouses.

Toward a Culture of Consequences: Performance-Based Accountability Systems for Public Services.

Performance-based accountability systems (PBASs), which link incentives to measured performance as a means of improving services to the public, have gained popularity. While PBASs can vary widely across sectors, they share three main components: goals, incentives, and measures. Research suggests that PBASs influence provider behaviors, but little is known about PBAS effectiveness at achieving performance goals or about government and agency experiences.

Can you get what you pay for? Pay-for-performance and the quality of healthcare providers.

Despite the popularity of pay-for-performance (P4P) among health policymakers and private insurers as a tool for improving quality of care, there is little empirical basis for its effectiveness. We use data from published performance reports of physician medical groups contracting with a large network HMO to compare clinical quality before and after the implementation of P4P, relative to a control group. We consider the effect of P4P on both rewarded and unrewarded dimensions of quality.