Olivia S Mitchell
Biographic Data
| ID | 1048428 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Olivia S Mitchell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Olivia S |
| FAMILY NAME | Mitchell |
| SIGNATURE | MITCHELL O S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pennsylvania |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6419-8314 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 97 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
How can we improve the diversity of archival collections with AI? Opportunities, risks, and solutions
This article is the first study to examine the impact (positive and negative) of Artificial Intelligence on the diversity of archival collections. Representing the diverse audiences they serve is a key objective for libraries and archives. For example, institutions with colonial-era archival documents are experimenting with AI to improve the discoverability of their collections and to enhance access for source communities and other users. Indeed,…
Evaluating the effects of a low-cost, online financial education program
Asset-rich and cash-poor
Home equity represents a substantial share of retirement wealth for many older persons, particularly in Asia where national housing policies have encouraged home-ownership. This paper explored the potential for reverse mortgages to help ‘asset-rich and cash-poor’ older Singaporeans unlock their home equity while ageing in place. The empirical analysis was based on a nationally representative survey of home-owners age 50+ in the 2018 Singapore Lif…
The Importance of Financial Literacy
We undertake an assessment of our two decades of research on financial literacy, building on our empirical research and theoretical work casting financial knowledge as a form of investment in human capital. We also draw on recent data to determine who is the most-and least-financially savvy in the United States, and we highlight the similarity of our results in other countries. A number of convincing studies is now available, from which we draw c…
Behavioral Impediments to Valuing Annuities
This paper examines two behavioral factors that diminish people's ability to value a lifetime income stream or annuity, drawing on a randomized experiment with about 4,000 adults in a U.S. nationally representative sample. We find that increasing the complexity of the annuity choice reduces respondents' ability to value the annuity, measured by the difference between the sell and buy values they assign to the annuity. When we limit narrow choice …
Assessing the impact of financial education programs
How Persistent Low Returns Will Shape Saving and Retirement
Funded pension systems around the world have long relied on relatively high and predictable long-term capital market returns. Yet these retirement systems confront a key challenge today, namely, how to deal with what appears to be persistently low returns on bonds and equities. For this reason, it will be prudent, and probably necessary, for insurers, plan sponsors, workers, retirees, and policymakers to take concrete steps to prepare for these l…
Helping Employers Become Age-ready
Demographic evidence suggests that by 2050, almost one quarter of the world’s population will be over the age of 60. Many of these people over 60 will still be at work to finance their longer lifetimes. We examine how living longer is likely to influence people’s decisions to work for longer; how the nature of changes to work itself will influence future work, workers, and the workplace; how employers can benefit from retaining older workers; and…
Financial Fraud Among Older Americans
Fraud is a complex phenomenon and no single factor uniquely predicts victimization across different types, even within the category of investment fraud. Prevention programs should educate consumers about various types of fraud and increase awareness among financial services professionals
Financial Decision Making and Retirement Security in an Aging World
As the world’s population lives longer, it will become increasingly important for plan sponsors, retirement advisors, regulators, and financial firms to focus closely on how older persons fare in the face of rising difficulties with cognition and financial management. This book offers state-of-the-art research and recommendations on how to evaluate when older persons need financial advice, help them make better financial decisions, and to identif…
Aging and Competence in Decision Making
This chapter reviews recent developments in research on decision making competence across the lifespan. It highlights age differences in four main skills that may contribute to making good decisions, namely cognitive deliberation, experience, emotions, and motivation. Although fluid cognitive abilities that underlie cognitive deliberation are known to decline with age, the others follow different paths with age. The chapter also discusses further…
Optimal Financial Knowledge and Wealth Inequality
We show that financial knowledge is a key determinant of wealth inequality in a stochastic lifecycle model with endogenous financial knowledge accumulation, where financial knowledge enables individuals to better allocate lifetime resources in a world of uncertainty and imperfect insurance. Moreover, because of how the U.S. social insurance system works, better-educated individuals have most to gain from investing in financial knowledge. Our pars…
The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy
This paper undertakes an assessment of a rapidly growing body of economic research on financial literacy. We start with an overview of theoretical research, which casts financial knowledge as a form of investment in human capital. Endogenizing financial knowledge has important implications for welfare, as well as policies intended to enhance levels of financial knowledge in the larger population. Next, we draw on recent surveys to establish how m…
Financial literacy and retirement planning in the United States
We examine financial literacy in the US using the new National Financial Capability Study, wherein we demonstrate that financial literacy is particularly low among the young, women, and the less-educated. Moreover, Hispanics and African-Americans score the least well on financial literacy concepts. Interestingly, all groups rate themselves as rather well-informed about financial matters, notwithstanding their actual performance on the key literac…
Financial literacy around the world
In an increasingly risky and globalized marketplace, people must be able to make well-informed financial decisions. New international research demonstrates that financial illiteracy is widespread in both well-developed and rapidly changing markets. Women are less financially literate than men, the young and the old are less financially literate than the middle-aged, and more educated people are more financially knowledgeable. Most importantly, th…
Planning and Financial Literacy
Many older US households have done little or no planning for retirement, and there is a substantial population that seems to undersave for retirement. Of particular concern is the relative position of older women, who are more vulnerable to old-age poverty due to their longer longevity. This paper uses data from a special module we devised on planning and financial literacy in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study. It shows that women display much…
Notional defined contribution pensions with public reserve funds in ageing economies
Several developed and developing countries have recently adopted a notional defined contribution (NDC) approach to old‐age pension reform. The NDC is essentially a non‐pre‐funded defined contribution retirement system, in which contributions are credited with a “rate of return” related to aggregate payroll growth, and individual account accruals are maintained in a book‐keeping system. Payouts are annuitized based on the expected mortality of eac…
Baby Boomer retirement security
Retiring the State
In the 1990s, numerous Latin American nations privatized their public pension systems. These reforms dramatically transformed the way these countries provide retirement income, and they provoked widespread protests from workers and pensioners alike. Retiring the State represents the first book-length study of the origins of this surprising trend. Drawing on original field research, including interviews with key policymakers, Madrid argues that th…
Perspectives from the President's Commission on Social Security Reform
Recently we were asked to serve on the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security (CSSS) along with 14 other members drawn equally from both major political parties. The Commission's charge was to provide recommendations to modernize the Social Security system, restore its fiscal soundness, and develop a workable system of Personal Retirement Accounts. This paper explains how the Commission arrived at some of its recommendations and the…
Themes in the Economics of Aging
The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement
Dramatic advances in life expectancy mean that today's retirees must plan on living into their eighties, their nineties, and even beyond. Longer life expectancies are the symbol of a prosperous society, but this progress also means that some retirees will need to plan conservatively and cut back substantially on their living standards or risk living so long that they exhaust their resources. This book examines the role that life annuities can pla…
Forecasting Retirement Needs and Retirement Wealth
Drawing on the latest information available on health, wealth, and retirement in America, this work offers new perspectives on ways to support the expanding population of older citizens
Living with Defined Contribution Plans
Prospects for Social Security Reform
Preface PART I. WHAT IS THE SOCIAL SECURITY PROBLEM? 1. An Overview of the Issues 2. Measuring Solvency in the Social Security System 3. Criteria for Evaluating Social Security Reform 4. New Opportunities for the Social Security System PART II. ASSESSING THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF SOCIAL SECURITY 5. Social Security Money's Worth 6. Simulating Benefit Levels Under Alternative Social Security Reforms 7. Stochastic Simulation of Economic Growth Effects …
Optimal Financial Knowledge and Wealth Inequality
We show that financial knowledge is a key determinant of wealth inequality in a stochastic lifecycle model with endogenous financial knowledge accumulation, where financial knowledge enables individuals to better allocate lifetime resources in a world of uncertainty and imperfect insurance. Moreover, because of how the U.S. social insurance system works, better-educated individuals have most to gain from investing in financial knowledge. Our pars…
Married women's retirement behavior
The Role of Pensions in the Labor Market
Because employer-sponsored group pension plans entail agreements between workers and their employers explicitly linking future payment and employment, they offer an unusual window into long-term employment relationships. This review of recent research on pensions explores how pensions influence employee compensation, retirement, turnover, and other matters central to the determination of labor's price and quantity over time. The authors also outl…
Financial Fraud Among Older Americans
Fraud is a complex phenomenon and no single factor uniquely predicts victimization across different types, even within the category of investment fraud. Prevention programs should educate consumers about various types of fraud and increase awareness among financial services professionals
Fringe Benefits and the Cost of Changing Jobs
One of the costs borne by workers changing jobs is the income loss associated with forfeited fringe benefits, including nonvested pensions, paid vacation and sick leave, group medical and life insurance coverage, and possibly profit-sharing and stock-ownership programs. This paper uses longitudinal information on a representative sample of workers to derive empirical estimates of the costs of changing jobs that are attributable to the loss of suc…
The Importance of Financial Literacy
We undertake an assessment of our two decades of research on financial literacy, building on our empirical research and theoretical work casting financial knowledge as a form of investment in human capital. We also draw on recent data to determine who is the most-and least-financially savvy in the United States, and we highlight the similarity of our results in other countries. A number of convincing studies is now available, from which we draw c…
Changes in Pension Incentives Through Time
A common assumption in the compensation and retirement literature, often necessitated by lack of data, is that company-sponsored pensions are static institutions. The present paper, a study of the pension plans at 14 companies for the years 1960, 1970, and 1980, challenges this assumption, showing that pension schemes are actually quite dynamic over time. Specifically, the authors find that in 1960 all 14 pension plans tended to reward delayed re…
The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement
Dramatic advances in life expectancy mean that today's retirees must plan on living into their eighties, their nineties, and even beyond. Longer life expectancies are the symbol of a prosperous society, but this progress also means that some retirees will need to plan conservatively and cut back substantially on their living standards or risk living so long that they exhaust their resources. This book examines the role that life annuities can pla…
Scale Economies in Private Multi-Employer Pension Systems
This paper examines the efficiency of pension plan operations in the private sector, focusing on the relationship between plan size and administrative expenses of pension fund management. The authors estimate cost equations for multi-employer, defined benefit plans with funds held totally by a trust, using data from a stratified sample of plan reports for 1975 filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. Equations are estimated for individual industr…
Asset-rich and cash-poor
Home equity represents a substantial share of retirement wealth for many older persons, particularly in Asia where national housing policies have encouraged home-ownership. This paper explored the potential for reverse mortgages to help ‘asset-rich and cash-poor’ older Singaporeans unlock their home equity while ageing in place. The empirical analysis was based on a nationally representative survey of home-owners age 50+ in the 2018 Singapore Lif…
Perspectives from the President's Commission on Social Security Reform
Recently we were asked to serve on the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security (CSSS) along with 14 other members drawn equally from both major political parties. The Commission's charge was to provide recommendations to modernize the Social Security system, restore its fiscal soundness, and develop a workable system of Personal Retirement Accounts. This paper explains how the Commission arrived at some of its recommendations and the…
Social security reforms and poverty among older dual-earner couples
Scale Economies in Private Multi-Employer Pension Systems
This paper examines the efficiency of pension plan operations in the private sector, focusing on the relationship between plan size and administrative expenses of pension fund management. The authors estimate cost equations for multi-employer, defined benefit plans with funds held totally by a trust, using data from a stratified sample of plan reports for 1975 filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. Equations are estimated for individual industr…
Fringe Benefits and the Cost of Changing Jobs
One of the costs borne by workers changing jobs is the income loss associated with forfeited fringe benefits, including nonvested pensions, paid vacation and sick leave, group medical and life insurance coverage, and possibly profit-sharing and stock-ownership programs. This paper uses longitudinal information on a representative sample of workers to derive empirical estimates of the costs of changing jobs that are attributable to the loss of suc…
Retirement and Economic Behavior
Retirement, Pensions, and Social Security
Why Tax Employee Benefits
Pensions, Economics and Public Policy
Changes in Pension Incentives Through Time
A common assumption in the compensation and retirement literature, often necessitated by lack of data, is that company-sponsored pensions are static institutions. The present paper, a study of the pension plans at 14 companies for the years 1960, 1970, and 1980, challenges this assumption, showing that pension schemes are actually quite dynamic over time. Specifically, the authors find that in 1960 all 14 pension plans tended to reward delayed re…
Married women's retirement behavior
The Economics of Pension Insurance
Social security reforms and poverty among older dual-earner couples
Employment Law in Europe
Ebri Databook on Employee Benefits
Pension Funding in the Public Sector
This paper explores the determinants of pension funding in the public sector. We formulate and test several hypotheses about the determinants of public employer pension funding practices, using a new data set describing financial and other characteristics of state, local, and teacher plans. The data show that, on average, public sector pension plans were relatively well-funded during the late 1980s. There were, however, wide variations in funding…
As the Workforce Ages
As the Workforce Ages
Health Care and the Labor Market
Health insurance and the labor market are inextricably entwined in the United States. Yet, few studies to date have examined the uniquely American links between employees' demand for and employers' ability to provide health care insurance. This topic is of substantial current interest because employer-provided health insurance plays a central role in the national health insurance reform planning process
The Role of Pensions in the Labor Market
Because employer-sponsored group pension plans entail agreements between workers and their employers explicitly linking future payment and employment, they offer an unusual window into long-term employment relationships. This review of recent research on pensions explores how pensions influence employee compensation, retirement, turnover, and other matters central to the determination of labor's price and quantity over time. The authors also outl…
Securing Employer-Based Pensions
As the world's population ages, millions will rely on their pension plans as the mainstay of retirement income. This book asks whether supply will meet demand in the new economic order. Pension systems in Germany, Japan, Canada, and the U.S. are compared, along with those in many developing nations. This volume is intended for employees and managers, pension policymakers, actuaries and lawyers, and benefits consultants, all of whom are busy chang…
Health problems as determinants of retirement
Living with Defined Contribution Plans
Prospects for Social Security Reform
Preface PART I. WHAT IS THE SOCIAL SECURITY PROBLEM? 1. An Overview of the Issues 2. Measuring Solvency in the Social Security System 3. Criteria for Evaluating Social Security Reform 4. New Opportunities for the Social Security System PART II. ASSESSING THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF SOCIAL SECURITY 5. Social Security Money's Worth 6. Simulating Benefit Levels Under Alternative Social Security Reforms 7. Stochastic Simulation of Economic Growth Effects …
Forecasting Retirement Needs and Retirement Wealth
Drawing on the latest information available on health, wealth, and retirement in America, this work offers new perspectives on ways to support the expanding population of older citizens
Themes in the Economics of Aging
The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement
Dramatic advances in life expectancy mean that today's retirees must plan on living into their eighties, their nineties, and even beyond. Longer life expectancies are the symbol of a prosperous society, but this progress also means that some retirees will need to plan conservatively and cut back substantially on their living standards or risk living so long that they exhaust their resources. This book examines the role that life annuities can pla…
Perspectives from the President's Commission on Social Security Reform
Recently we were asked to serve on the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security (CSSS) along with 14 other members drawn equally from both major political parties. The Commission's charge was to provide recommendations to modernize the Social Security system, restore its fiscal soundness, and develop a workable system of Personal Retirement Accounts. This paper explains how the Commission arrived at some of its recommendations and the…
Economics (36 works) · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis (26 works) · Business (23 works) · Finance (20 works) · Retirement, Disability, and Employment (20 works) · Finance (19 works) · Political science (15 works) · Pension (14 works) · Economic growth (11 works) · Actuarial science (9 works)