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| Date | Publication/Paper |
|---|---|
| 2011 | Ellen, Ingrid, Vicki Been, Sewin Chan, and Josiah Madar 2011. Decoding the Foreclosure Crisis: Causes, Responses and Consequences. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30 (2011): 388-396. |
Ellen, Ingrid, Vicki Been, Sewin Chan, and Josiah Madar. 2011. Negative Equity, Yes, But Not the Whole Story.. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30 (2011): 398-400. | |
| 2008 | Chan, S. & Stevens, A.H. 2008. "What You Don't Know Can't Help You: Worker Knowledge and Retirement Decision-Making". Review of Economics and Statistics, volume 90(2), May 2008.
This paper provides an answer to an important empirical puzzle in the retirement literature: while most people know little about their own pension plans, retirement behavior is strongly affected by pension incentives. We combine administrative and self-reported pension data to measure the retirement response to actual and perceived financial incentives and document an important role for self-reported pension data in determining retirement behavior. Well-informed individuals are far more responsive to pension incentives than the average individual. Ill-informed individuals seem to respond systematically to their own misperceptions of pension incentives. |
| 2006 | Chan, S. 2006. New Measures of Pension Knowledge. with Ann Huff Stevens. Working paper. Prepared for the 2006 meeting of The Society of Labor Economics.
This paper uses self-reports of pension information from multiple waves of the Health and Retirement Study to examine the consistency, completeness and accuracy of pension knowledge. Previous work examining individual’s knowledge of their pensions has relied on comparisons of
employer-provided pension plan documents and self-reported pension plan components. Particularly for defined contribution pension plans, such comparisons may be misleading if the
employer-reports are considered to be proxies for the true pension values. We show that patterns of pension reporting across time is consistent with substantial misinformation, but that pension information does seem to improve significantly immediately prior to separating from one’s job. Conditional on reporting a value for defined benefit income or defined contribution account
balances, individuals are reasonably consistent in their reports taken just before and after leaving a job. |
Chan, S. 2006. Is Retirement Being Remade? Developments in Labor Market Patterns at Older Ages. Managing Retirement Payouts edited by John Amerikis and Olivia Mitchell.
As Baby Boomers make the transition into their 60s, they have focused policymakers and the media's attention onto how this generation will manage the retirement phase of its lifetime. This volume acknowledges that many, though not all, in this older cohort have accumulated substantial assets, so for them, the question is what will they do with what they have? We offer a detailed exploration of how people entering retirement will deploy their accumulated assets in the near and long term, so to best meet their myriad spending, investment, and other objectives. The book offers readers an invaluable study of emerging issues regarding assets and expectations on the verge of retirement, including uncertainty regarding life expectancy and morbidity. It is composed of chapters from a distinguished set of authors including a Nobel Laureate and a wonderful mix of academics and practitioners from the legal, financial, and economic fields.
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| 2004 | Chan, S. & Stevens, A.H. 2004. Do Changes in Pension Incentives Affect Retirement? A Longitudinal Study of Subjective Retirement Expectations. Journal of Public Economics, July.
This paper investigates the responsiveness of individuals’ retirement decisions to forward-looking measures of pension accumulations. In contrast to previous research, we use within-person variation in retirement incentives and are able to control for unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for retirement by studying a panel of subjective retirement expectations. We confirm that individuals do respond as expected to pension incentives, even when we control for individual fixed effects. However, the magnitude of these responses differs when estimated from models based on within-person versus cross-sectional variation: the inclusion of fixed effects reduces the response by about half. |
Blustein, J., Chan, S. & Aguiair, F.C. 2004. Elevated Depressive Symptoms Among
Caregiving Grandparents. Health Services Research, Vol. 28, No. 6p1, pp. 1671-1690.
The objective is to determine whether caregiving grandparents are at an increased risk for depressive symptoms.
| |
Chan, S. & Stevens, A.H. 2004. How Does Job Loss Affect the Timing of Retirement? Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy 2004: Vol. 3: No. 1, Article 5.
This paper estimates the extent to which reduced employment following job loss among older workers can be explained as a response to altered pension incentives and earnings opportunities. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we first examine how workers’ earnings, assets, pensions and the resulting financial incentive to retire are affected by job loss. We find important effects of job loss on the main financial components of workers’ incentive to retire. We then examine retirement behavior after job loss, controlling for these changed retirement incentives, along with any additional effects of displacement not captured by retirement incentives. We find that the observed increased rates of retirement among displaced workers go far beyond these purely financial considerations. Very little of the reduced employment among older job losers can be explained by changes in wages and pension-related retirement incentives. Other barriers to reemployment may be more important explanations for the low employment rates of recently displaced older workers. | |
| 2001 | Chan, S. 2001. Spatial Lock-in: Do Falling House Prices Constrain Residential Mobility. Journal of Urban Economics, May.
Falling house prices have caused numerous homeowners to suffer capital losses. Those with little home equity may be prevented from moving because of imperfections in housing finance markets: the proceeds from the sale of their home may be insufficient to repay their mortgage and provide a down payment on a new home. A data set of mortgages is used to examine the magnitude of these constraints. Estimates show that average mobility would have been 24% higher after 3 years had house prices not declined, and after 4 years, it would have been 33% higher. Among those with high initial loan-to-value ratios, the differences are even greater. |
Chan, S. & Stevens, A.H. 2001. Job Loss and Employment Behavior of Older Workers. Journal of Labor Economics, April.
This article uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine the employment patterns of workers aged 50 and above who have experienced an involuntary job loss. Hazard models for returning to work and for exiting post-displacement employment are estimated and used to examine work patterns for 10 years following a job loss. Our findings show that a job loss results in large and lasting effects on future employment probabilities. Four years after job losses at age 55, the employment rate of displaced workers remains 20 percentage points below the employment rate of similar nondisplaced workers. | |
Chan, S. & Stevens, A.H. 2001. The Effects of Job Loss on Older Workers. Peter P. Budetti, Richard V. Burkhauser, Janice M. Gregory and H. Allan Hunt (editors), Ensuring Health and Income Security for an Aging Workforce, Kalamazoo: W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
This article uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine the employment patterns of workers aged 50 and above who have experienced an involuntary job loss. Hazard Models for returning to work and for exiting post displacement employment are estimated and used to examine work patterns for 10 years following a job loss. Our findings show that a job loss results in large and lasting effects on future employment probabilities. Four years after job losses at age 55, the employment rate of displaced workers remains 20 percentage points below the employment rate of similar nondisplaced workers. | |
| 1999 | Chan, S., Schneider, H. & Tracy, J. 1999. Are Stocks Overtaking Real Estate in Household Portfolios? Current Issues in Economics and Finance 5(5), April 1999, pages 1-6.
The rapid growth of the stock market since 1990 has encouraged the view that corporate equity holdings are becoming the primary asset for a broad spectrum of American households. A closer look at the evidence, however, reveals that real estate continues to eclipse stocks as a share of most households’ portfolios. |
Chan, S., Schneider, H. & Tracy, J. 1999. Crowded House. Boston Review 24, February/March, Forum: Sharing the Wealth.
The extraordinary growth in the stock market over the past several years has significantly increased wealth in the US household sector. The Flow of Funds Accounts data indicate that in the second quarter of 1998 corporate equity holdings in the household sector amounted to $9.4 billion dollars or 28 percent of total household assets. This represents an astounding increase of $5.3 billion over the past five years. For only the second time since the mid-1940s have equity holdings surpassed all other classes of assets in the household sector (although real estate comes close at 27 percent). | |
Chan, S. & Stevens, A.H. 1999. Employment and Retirement Following a Late Career Job Loss. American Economic Review 89(2), May 1999, pages 211-216.
The frequency of job loss among workers in late career has risen disproportionately in recent years. During the early 1980s, displacement rates for 55-64 year olds were the lowest of any age cohort
but by the recession of the early 1990s, they had the highest rates (see Farber [1997]). The effects of job
loss on these workers are potentially severe: their earnings capacity, savings, and retirement expectations
are likely to be dramatically affected and they may take substantially longer to be re-employed. However, despite these reasons for heightened concern, relatively little is known about the economic
consequences of late career job loss among recent cohorts of workers. Empirical estimation of dynamic
retirement models and analyses of retirement behavior in general have usually ignored involuntary job
losses, and many recent studies of post-displacement outcomes have been limited to younger and mid-
career workers. Given the changes in labor force participation, retirement rates and the nature of displacement over the past decade, it is important to document the effects of job loss on more recent
cohorts of older workers. This paper presents findings from an ongoing research project that focuses on the economic impacts of late career job loss on employment and retirement patterns, as well as on earnings and assets. | |
Chan, S., Caplin, A., Freeman, C. & Tracy, J. 1999. Household Asset Portfolios and the Reform of the Housing Finance Market. TIAA-CREF Research Dialogues 59, Feb, pages 1-12.
When individuals or families make retirement planning decisions, including asset allocation choices, it is important for them to consider how all of the assets they own fit together to form an overall portfolio of house-hold wealth. Surprisingly often, one of the most important household assets is left out of retirement planning discussions completely: the family home. This issue of Research Dialogue examines in detail the central role that residential housing plays in household asset portfolios in the United States. Currently, families don't have much choice regarding the amount of wealth they must "allocate" to their home: either they own their residence or they do not. This stark choice generally leaves homeowners overexposed to significant financial risks that most would prefer not to take. The authors of this article describe financial innovations that, if developed and adopted, would provide families far greater choice regarding how much to invest in a home. The authors show that this greater flexibility could lead to as much as 20% greater wealth at retirement through better diversification of the wealth that homeowners currently must hold in the form of housing.
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| 1997 | Chan, S., Caplin, A., Freeman, C. & Tracy, J. 1997. Housing Partnerships: A New Approach to a Market at a Crossroads. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, pages xiv, 265.
A revolutionary housing finance concept can help many more Americans buy the homes of their dreams, while simultaneously furnishing vast, new investment opportunities for financial institutions and investors. The idea: enable consumers to purchase part of a home through a new type of financing called Housing Partnership agreements. Housing Partnerships: A New Approach to a Market at Crossroads provides a blueprint for the development of this alternative housing finance market, and offers a new and compelling housing finance option: instead of the existing two housing options -- renting or buying an entire dwelling -- would-be home owners can finance a percentage of a property, while the other portion is financed by institutional investors, who provide capital for the house in exchange for a proportion of the final sale price. The home buyer (Managing Partner) and a financial institution (Limited Partner) would each own a fixed proportion of the home, resulting in co-ownership of the property. The Managing Partner would live in the entire home and when the house is sold, potential proceeds are split with the Limited Partner. Housing Partnerships: A New Approach to a Market at a Crossroads proposes adapting the same legal form used successfully by commercial enterprises for the residential housing market. Why can't individual home owners, just like businesses, avail themselves to the benefits of this type of ownership? Why is the U.S. housing market the only one in which there is no way to sell any part of the return stream to other investors? Housing Partnerships: A New Approach to a Market at a Crossroads has ideas to interest a range of readers, from prospective home buyers to realtors, from financial investors to those interested in housing and social policy development.
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| 1996 | Chan, S. 1996. Residential Mobility and Mortgages. Regional Science and Urban Economics 26(3-4), June 1996, pages 287-311.
Mortgage applications are a detailed and accurate source of household information that is verified by underwriters, making it a more accurate data source than self-reported survey answers. This paper discusses how mortgage data can be applied to areas of economics outside mortgage finance. As a supplement to variables from the application form, the self-selection of mortgage points is used to infer expected mobility. A duration model of housing spells is estimated, and the points indicator is shown to be highly significant in predicting mobility for low loan-to-value borrowers. The findings demonstrate the potential fruitfulness of using this new data source. |
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