Showing papers by "Gary S. Fields published in 1983"

The economics of retirement behavior

Abstract: This paper examines the role of economic factors in determining retirement behavior using a unique new data archive on more than 8,700 workers covered by 10 different pension plans. We build on our...

Poverty, Inequality, and Development

Abstract: Economists have traditionally concentrated on aggregate economic growth to measure a country's development, but previously they have also considered income distribution performance. In this book Gary Fields reverses conventional approaches by using income distribution as the primary indicator. He examines what is known about the distribution of income and poverty, inequality, and development. He explores the main causes of poverty and inequality and the extent to which they have been reduced by individual countries in the course of their economic growth. Recognizing that conclusions vary with the type of income distribution measure used, Fields proposes that changes in absolute poverty be adopted as the primary index of a developing nation's progress and suggests that the growth rate of the GNP and character of that growth be regarded as the principal determinants of the levels of poverty and inequality. This framework calls for new models new data. and new microanalytic techniques in order to understand the results of development efforts. Fields employs evidence from case studies of six developing nations to suggest some explanations for differing patterns of development and calls for development planning founded on a firm commitment to helping the poor.

Economic Incentives to Retire: A Qualitative Choice Approach

Abstract: This paper addresses two questions:(1) Are older persons' retirement ages significantly affected by the opportunities for income from earnings,private pensions, and Social Security and for leisure at alternative retirement ages?; and (2) How large are the estimated responses? Our approach to modeling the retirement problem is a forward-looking one, in which the explanatory variables include present discounted values of expected lifetime income from earnings, private pensions, and Social Security at all future retirement ages. Such data have been constructed using a unique archive on 390 workers covered by a large union pension plan. A previous paper (Fieldsand Mitchell, 1982) used these data to show that retirement ages are significantly associated with the present discounted value of income at age 60, and with the gain in income from deferring retirement. The current paper develops two different qualitative choice models of the retirement decision. We find: retirement ages do indeed respond significantly to future income and leisure opportunities; an ordered logit model is more suited to the data than is a multinomial logit model; and the estimated responses to changes in future income opportunities differ across model specifications, where the preferred ordered logit model exhibits larger estimated responses.

Rewards to Continued Work: The Economic Incentives For Postponing Retirement

Abstract: Using a new data file on pay and pensions, this paper presents and discusses new empirical evidence on how olde rworkers' income opportunities change as they age. It also develops a detailed description of private pension structures and the ways in which pensions reward deferred retirement. The data imply that the present discounted value of total lifetime income rises when people postpone retirement, but the size of the income increment varies with age. The data also show that some pension plans encourage early retirement while others penalize it.

Economic Incentives to Retire: A Qualitative Choice Approach

Abstract: This paper addresses two questions:(1) Are older persons' retirement ages significantly affected by the opportunities for income from earnings,private pensions, and Social Security and for leisure at alternative retirement ages?; and (2) How large are the estimated responses? Our approach to modeling the retirement problem is a forward-looking one, in which the explanatory variables include present discounted values of expected lifetime income from earnings, private pensions, and Social Security at all future retirement ages. Such data have been constructed using a unique archive on 390 workers covered by a large union pension plan. A previous paper (Fieldsand Mitchell, 1982) used these data to show that retirement ages are significantly associated with the present discounted value of income at age 60, and with the gain in income from deferring retirement. The current paper develops two different qualitative choice models of the retirement decision. We find: retirement ages do indeed respond significantly to future income and leisure opportunities; an ordered logit model is more suited to the data than is a multinomial logit model; and the estimated responses to changes in future income opportunities differ across model specifications, where the preferred ordered logit model exhibits larger estimated responses.

Social Returns to Education: Central Planning and Local Planning Perspectives

Abstract: Excerpt] This paper is written for educationists and development planners. Its purposes are to familiarize policy makers, advisors, and analysts with the most important approaches to the economics of education and to evaluate the various approaches critically in the context of developing countries. Three topics are developed: 1. How social returns to education typically are calculated. 2. An evaluation of the conventional social return to education approach. 3. A comparison of central planning and local planning. Before embarking on these topics, an important preliminary issue arises: Why conduct economic analysis of education at all? After all, might it not be crass to think of education in economic terms? Does not investment in education represent an obviously meritorious use of social resources? Is there not overwhelming evidence that countries that spend more on education are richer, at least materially? Wouldn’t educational expansion be especially beneficial to the poorest citizens of a country those who are most likely excluded from education when enrollment ratios are less than universal? How can educators and social scientists with Ph.D.'s even think it possible to have too much education? The answers to all these questions are the same. Yes, education is a good, but it comes at a cost. To spend more on education is to forego expenditures on health care, housing, construction of infrastructure, or whatever else the resources might have been used for had they not been devoted to education. The concern is not whether more education would produce benefits more on education is the best use of resources, taking account of what must be given up to provide education. In deciding on the desirability of education and in planning educational systems, the benefits of education need to be assessed in relation to the costs. Never is economic analysis more important that when resources are scarcest, as in poor countries. Recognizing, then, that an economic approach to educational planning is to be desired and not avoided, the appropriate question is how is it to be done? The answers are developed in the remainder of this report. Section I outlines the logic behind economic analysis of educational planning. Section II describes three approaches that have been taken in the literature: the manpower requirements approach, the social demand approach, and the social cost-benefit approach. Section III evaluates the social cost-benefit approach from a central planning perspective. The central planning perspective is contrasted with local planning perspectives in Section IV. Conclusions appear in Section V.