This study examines empirically whether social security influences the retirement decisions of individuals. The framework for this study is the life-cycle model of individual behavior. The life-cycle model shows that there are two main ways in which social security can affect behavior. One way is through the change in an individual's lifetime income that social security can bring about. The other way has to do with how the system changes compensation for work. Social security's income and substitution effects are included in a model for examining retirement decisions. This model is based on the model of labor force participation that has become standard in the literature on labor supply. The data used in this study come from the Social Security Administration and are particularly well suited for this study. Retirement models are estimated separately for samples of 62-64 and 65-70 year old men. The empirical results support the conclusion that social security influences the decision to retire. The magnitude of behavioral responses to changes in social security benefits are reported and implications for future behavior are discussed.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
0734.
Length: Date of creation: Aug 1981 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0734
Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Martin Feldstein & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001.
"Social Security,"
NBER Working Papers
8451, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B., 2002.
"Social security,"
Handbook of Public Economics,
in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 32, pages 2245-2324
Elsevier.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Krueger, Alan B. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2002.
"Labor supply effects of social insurance,"
Handbook of Public Economics,
in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 33, pages 2327-2392
Elsevier.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)