Featured Researcher: Kathleen McGarry

Kathleen McGarry is a Research Associate in the NBER's Aging Program. Affiliated with the NBER since 1992, she was a National Fellow at the NBER during the 2001-02 academic year and will be in residence at the NBER during the 2004-05 academic year.

McGarry is a Professor of Economics at UCLA. She joined the UCLA faculty in 1992 and has won numerous teaching awards during her tenure there. In 2000-2001, McGarry served as a Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers working for both the Clinton and Bush administrations in the areas of health, education and welfare. McGarry received both her Ph.D. in Economics and her B.S. in Mathematics from the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

McGarry's research encompasses a wide variety of topics in the economics of aging and has received financial support from the National Institutes of Health and the Social Security administration. Much of McGarry's work has focused on the importance of public and private transfers. She has studied financial transfers from parents to their adult children as well as transfers of both time and money to elderly parents. She has also analyzed public transfers through the SSI program and related work with the Social Security and Medicare programs. McGarry's current research focuses on the long-term care and health insurance markets.

In her free time McGarry enjoys hiking, cooking, and exploring the farmers' markets of Southern California. During the coming year she is looking forward to spending time with her nieces and nephew in New England, and making the occasional trip to the Metropolitan Opera in New York.