Retiree Health Insurance and the Labor Force Behavior of Older Men in the 1990s

Blau, David M.; Gilleskie, Donna B.

doi:10.1162/003465301750160045

Cited by 118 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The mean two-year retirement probability for these workers was 11 percent, so the estimated increase in retirement probability (3 percentage points) implies that RHB-offered workers were more likely to retire than those without by about 27 percent. This is similar to estimates obtained by Rogowski and Karoly (2000) and Blau and Gilleskie (2001), who used early waves of the HRS.…”

Section: Empirical Findingssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…In particular, Rogowski and Karoly (2000) find that workers with RHBs in 1992 were about 11 percentage points more likely to be retired in 1996 than those without. Blau and Gilleskie (2001) emphasize the importance of cost-sharing on the estimated relationship between RHBs and retirement. They examine retirement transitions during 1992-1994 and find that RHBs increased the probability of retirement by 6 percentage points if the employer paid the full RHB premium, but only by 2 percentage points if retirees had to contribute to the RHB's cost.…”

Section: Rhbs and Retirement: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Hurd and McGarry (1993) examine wave 1 (1992) of the HRS and find that workers eligible for RHBs partly or fully paid by the employer are significantly less likely than other workers to report that they expect to work past age 62. Rogowski and Karoly (2000) and Blau and Gilleskie (2001) each take advantage of two waves of the HRS and find that workers with an offer of RHBs are significantly more likely to retire than workers without. In particular, Rogowski and Karoly (2000) find that workers with RHBs in 1992 were about 11 percentage points more likely to be retired in 1996 than those without.…”

Section: Rhbs and Retirement: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Retiree Health Benefits as Deferred Compensation: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Marton

Woodbury

2012

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in ABSTRACTAre early retiree health benefits (RHBs) a form of deferred compensation that binds workers to an employer? Most employers who offer RHBs offer them only to workers who have 10 or more years of tenure with the firm and have reached age 55. Accordingly, workers in firms offering RHBs have an incentive to stay with a firm in the years before they attain eligibility for RHBs, and a greater incentive than otherwise to retire thereafter. We test for the existence of such a pattern of incentives by examining the age-specific relationship between workers' eligibility for RHBs and retirement. The findings suggest that workers in RHB-offering firms are less likely to retire at ages 50 and 51 than similar workers in firms that do not offer RHBs. Also, RHB-eligible workers aged 60 and 61 are more likely to retire than similar RHB-ineligible workers. Such a pattern is consistent with RHBs acting as part of a delayed-payment contract of the kind described by Lazear (1979Lazear ( , 1981 Acknowledgments: For helpful comments and advice, we thank Jeff Biddle, Chris Bollinger, Charles Brown, J.S. Butler, Todd Elder, Eliakim Katz, Susann Rohwedder, Virginia Wilcox-Gok, Barbara Wolfe, and two anonymous referees. We are also grateful to participants at several conference sessions and university seminars, particularly at UAB, Emory and Northern Illinois.

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Section: Empirical Findingssupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Rhbs and Retirement: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Rhbs and Retirement: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Retiree Health Benefits as Deferred Compensation: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Marton

Woodbury

2012

SSRN Journal

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“…Our framework, for example, offers an alternative approach to Blau and Gilleskie's (2001) parametric analysis of the impact of employer-provided retiree health insurance on retirement outcomes. In the Health and Retirement Study data used in their study, about 13 percent of the respondents nearing retirement age said they were unsure about whether they had retiree insurance-thus forming a natural subpopulation of respondents to be characterized as providing unreliable treatment information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partially Identifying Treatment Effects with an Application to Covering the Uninsured

Kreider¹,

Hill²

2009

J. Human Resources

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We extend the nonparametric literature on partially identified probability distributions and use our analytical results to provide sharp bounds on the impact of universal health insurance on provider visits and medical expenditures. Our approach accounts for uncertainty about the reliability of self-reported insurance status as well as uncertainty created by unknown counterfactuals. We construct health insurance validation data using detailed information from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Imposing relatively weak nonparametric assumptions, we estimate that under universal coverage monthly per capita provider visits and expenditures would rise by less than 8 percent and 16 percent, respectively, across the nonelderly population. s t r a c tWe extend the nonparametric literature on partially identified probability distributions and use our analytical results to provide sharp bounds on the impact of universal health insurance on provider visits and medical expenditures. Our approach accounts for uncertainty about the reliability of self-reported insurance status as well as uncertainty created by unknown counterfactuals. We construct health insurance validation data using detailed information from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Imposing relatively weak nonparametric assumptions, we estimate that under universal coverage monthly per capita provider visits and expenditures would rise by less than 8 percent and 16 percent, respectively, across the nonelderly population.

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“…As regards health expenditure, there is considerable interest in labour economics in the relation of health and health insurance to the retirement decision as such (see Blau and Gilleskie (2001), Disney, Emmerson and Wakefield (2003), Dwyer and Mitchell (1999) and Gruber and Madrian (1995). However, the relation of health spending to the cycle has not come in for special study.…”

Section: Preliminariesmentioning

confidence: 99%