Social Security and Retirement

Center for Retirement Research Working Paper No. 2000-11

56 Pages Posted: 1 Jan 2001

See all articles by Courtney Coile

Courtney Coile

Wellesley College; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Jonathan Gruber

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 2000

Abstract

A critical question for Social Security policy is how program incentives affect retirement behavior. We use the wealth of new data available through the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine the impact of Social Security incentives on male retirement. We implement forward-looking models of retirement whereby individuals consider not just the incentives to work in the next year but in all future years as well. We find that such forward looking incentive measures for Social Security are significant determinants of retirement decisions. Our findings suggest that Social Security policies which increase the incentives to work at older ages can significantly reduce the exit rate of older workers from the labor force.

Keywords: Social Security, retirement

JEL Classification: J26, J32

Suggested Citation

Coile, Courtney and Gruber, Jonathan, Social Security and Retirement (December 2000). Center for Retirement Research Working Paper No. 2000-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=253040 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.253040

Courtney Coile

Wellesley College ( email )

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Jonathan Gruber (Contact Author)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics ( email )

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