I am Associate Director of Research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. I obtained a Ph.D in economics from the University of California, San Diego in 2001. The primary focus of my research is the management of asset decumulation in retirement. My published and working papers examine issues such as optimal annuitization strategies, the design of innovative annuity products, the management of aggregate mortality risk, strategies for tapping housing equity in retirement, and so on. But I also have written on the impact of pension and Social Security incentives on retirement, and the determinants and consequences of the balance of bargaining power within the household.
Articles
Evaluating the Advanced Life Deferred Annuity - An Annuity people might actually buy (with Guan Gong), Insurance: Mathematics and Economics (2010)
Although annuities provide longevity insurance that should be attractive to households facing an uncertain lifespan,rates...
New Evidence on the Labor Supply Effects of the Social Security Earnings Test (with Leora Friedberg), Tax Policy and the Economy (2009)
Mortality Heterogeneity and The Distributional Consequences of Mandatory Annuitization (with Guan Gong), Journal of Risk and Insurance (2008)
This paper investigates the distributional consequences of mandatory annuitization such as occurs in Social Security...
Optimal retirement Asset Decumulation Strategies: The Role of Housing Wealth (with Robert Triest and Wei Sun), Asia Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance (2008)
A considerable literature examines the optimal decumulation of financial wealth in retirement. We extend this...
The Impact of Aggregate Mortality Risk on Defined Benefit Pension Plans (with Irena Dushi and Leora Friedberg), Journal of Pension Economics and Finance (2008)
We calculate the risk faced by defined benefit plan providers arising from uncertain aggregate mortality...
Contributions to Books
The Impact of Pensions on Non-Pension Investment Choices (with Leora Friedberg), Redefining Retirement: How Will Boomers Fare? (2007)
The displacement of traditional defined benefit (DB) pensions with defined contribution (DC) pensions over the...
Rethinking the Sources of Adverse Selection in the Annuity Market (with Irena Dushi), Competitive Failures in Insurance Markets: Theory and Policy Implications (2006)
Unpublished Papers
Identifying Local Differences in Retirement Patterns (with Leora Friedberg and Michael T. Owyanf) (2008)
What Effect Do Time Constraints Have on the Age of Retirement (with Wei Sun and Leora Friedberg) (2008)
Why Do Married Men Claim Social security Benefits So Early? Ignorance or Caddishness? (with Steven A. Sass and Wei Sun) (2007)
Most married men claim Social Security benefits at age 62 or 63, well short of...
Evaluating the Advanced Life Deferred Annuity - An Annuity People Might Actually Buy (with Guan Gong) (2007)
Although annuities provide longevity insurance that should, in theory, be attractive to risk-averse households facing...
The Chore Wars (with Leora Friedberg) (2006)
Stress over the use of time is a hallmark of American life today. We analyze...