Julie M. Zissimopoulos is a Research Associate Professor in the Titus Family Department of Clinical and Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy, University of Southern California, and Associate Director of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. She is also an adjunct Senior Economist at RAND and Professor of Economics at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Dr. Zissimopoulos’s areas of special interest are economics of aging and the family. Among her recent projects are studies of medical expenditures at older ages, earnings and savings over the lifecycle, labor supply and retirement, and transfers of resources between family members of different generations and well being at older ages. Dr. Zissimopoulos’ research sponsors include the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration. In addition, Julie is a regular member of review panels for the National Institute on Aging. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, M.A. from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and B.A. from Boston College.
Economics of Aging
Medical Expenditure Measures in the Health and Retirement Study, Forum for Health Economics & Policy (2011)
This paper reviews out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenditure measures collected in the Health and Retirement Study...
How Longer Work Lives Ease the Crunch of Population Aging (with Nicole Maestas), Journal of Economic Perspectives (2010)
Formerly Work at Older Ages: The Shape of Change
Inter-vivos Giving Over the Lifecycle (with Michael Hurd and James Smith), RAND Working Paper (2008)
Inter-vivos cash transfers and bequests between family members total hundreds of billions of dollars each...
Transitions to self-employment at older ages: The role of wealth, health, health insurance and other factors (with Lynn Karoly), Labour Economics (2007)
Relatively little research has been devoted to studying self-employment among older workers although they make...
Financial incentives and retirement: evidence from federal civil service workers (with Beth Asch and Steven Haider), Journal of Public Economics (2005)
We examine the retirement behavior of federal civil service workers employed by the Department of...
Retirement Economics
How Longer Work Lives Ease the Crunch of Population Aging (with Nicole Maestas), Journal of Economic Perspectives (2010)
Formerly Work at Older Ages: The Shape of Change
Labor Market and Immigration Behavior of Middle-Aged and Elderly Mexicans (with Emma Aguila), Michigan Retirement Research Center Working Paper (2008)
In this study we analyzed the retirement behavior of Mexicans with migration spells to the...
The Effect of Retirement Incentives on Retirement Behavior: Evidence from the Self-Employed in the United States and England (with Nicole Maestas and Lynn Karoly), RAND Working Paper Series, WR-528 (2006)
Financial incentives and retirement: evidence from federal civil service workers (with Beth Asch and Steven Haider), Journal of Public Economics (2005)
We examine the retirement behavior of federal civil service workers employed by the Department of...
Health Policy
Medical Expenditure Measures in the Health and Retirement Study, Forum for Health Economics & Policy (2011)
This paper reviews out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenditure measures collected in the Health and Retirement Study...
Liquidity Constraints, Household Wealth and Self-employment: The Case of Older Workers (with Lynn Karoly and Qian Gu), RAND Working Paper (2009)
Evidence of liquidity constraints affecting entrepreneurship includes increasing rates of business formation with increases in...
High Out-Of-Pocket Health Care Spending By The Elderly (with Dana P. Goldman), Health Affairs (2003)
We use data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine the elderly’s out-of-pocket health...
Labor Market
Employment and Self-Employment in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina (with Lynn Karoly), Demography (2010)
We use data from the monthly Current Population Survey to examine the short- and longer-term...
Indian Entrepreneurial Success in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom (with Robert Fairlie, Harry Krashinsky, and Krishna Kumar) (2009)
Indian immigrants in the United States and other wealthy countries are successful in entrepreneurship. Using...
Marriage and Family
Monetary Gifts to Children Across Countries and Over Time (with James Smith), Intergenerational Mobility within and Across Nations – The Promise of Cross-national Research to Explain and Isolate the Factors which Enhance or Impede Mobility, (2010)
Money parents give their adult children may be important for the financing of a child’s...
Gain and Loss: Marriage and Wealth Changes Over Time, Michigan Retirement Research Center, Working Paper (2009)
Family composition has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. Divorce rates increased and remarriage...
Why Wait? The Effect of Marriage and Childbearing on the Wages of Men and Women (with David Loughran), The Journal of Human Resources (2009)
We use data from the earlier and later cohorts of the NLSY to estimate the...