NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Why are Retirement Rates So High at Age 65?

Robin L. Lumsdaine, James H. Stock, David A. Wise

NBER Working Paper No. 5190*
Issued in July 1995
NBER Program(s):   AG    LS

The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.

In most data sets of labor force participation of the elderly, an empirical regularity that emerges is that retirement rates are particularly high at age 65. While there are numerous economic reasons why individuals may choose to retire at 65, empirical models that have attempted to explain the age-65 spike have met with limited success. Interpreted another way, while many models would predict a jump in the hazard rate at age 65, the magnitude of the spike indicates excessive response given the economic considerations that retirees typically face. This paper considers the puzzle of why retirement rates are so high at age 65 and explores a variety of explanations.

*Published: This paper was subsequently published as Why Are Retirement Rates So High at Age 65?, Robin L. Lumsdaine, James H. Stock, David A. Wise, in NBER book Advances in the Economics of Aging (1996)

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

Information about Free Papers

You should expect a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, a journalist, a site with your domain name in ".GOV", or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy.

If you usually get free papers at work/university but do not at home, you can either connect to your work VPN or proxy (if any) or elect to have a link to the paper emailed to your work email address below. The email address must be connected to a subscribing college, university, or other subscribing institution. Gmail and other free email addresses will not have access.

E-mail:

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX

 
Publications
Activities
Meetings
Data
People
About

National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; 617-868-3900; email: info@nber.org