Estimating the Income Effect on Retirement

Author(s)/Creator(s)

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Syracuse University
David Joulfaian, Georgetown University
Harvey S. Rosen, Princeton University

Description/Abstract

One of the most important issues in the debate over Social Security is how various changes in the system would change retirement behavior. A critical parameter in this context is the income effect on retirement— how a change in income affects retirement behavior, ceteris paribus. To estimate the income effect, we examine tax-return generated data on the labor force activity of a group of older people before and after they receive inheritances. The results are consistent with the notion that income effects are small. Neither retirement decisions nor the magnitude of earnings conditional on working seem to be affected very much by the receipt of an inheritance.

Document Type

Working Paper

Date

4-1999

Language

English

Funder(s)

National Institute on Aging

Funding ID

P20-AG12837

Series

Aging Studies Program Paper Series

Disciplines

Economic Policy | Economics | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Public Policy

ISSN

1084-1695

Additional Information

Aging studies program paper no.18

Recommended Citation

Holtz-Eakin, Douglas; Joulfaian, David; and Rosen, Harvey S., "Estimating the Income Effect on Retirement" (1999). Center for Policy Research. 429.
https://surface.syr.edu/cpr/429

Source

Local Input

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.