Barbara Boyle Torrey

Some Frontiers in Social Science

The fundamental challenge in the social sciences is moving from complicated correlations to useful prediction. Progress usually reflects an interplay between theory, data, and tools. Six areas of innovation, principally data and tools, are now pushing at the frontiers of these sciences: longitudinal data, laboratory experimentation, improved statistical methods, geographic information tools, biosocial science, and international replication. These innovations are gaining power as they cross disciplinary boundaries, helping to attribute causality to observed relationships, to understand their nature, and thereby to improve the accuracy and usefulness of predictions.

The Retirement Consumption Conundrum: Evidence from a Consumption Survey

Recent studies have shown that food consumption declines at retirement. We use broader definitions of consumption from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and find that the so-called retirement consumption puzzle is solved by using comprehensive consumption data.

Identifying the Poorest Older Americans

OBJECTIVES Public policies target a subset of the population defined as poor or needy, but rarely are people poor or needy in the same way. This is particularly true among older adults. This study investigates poverty among older adults in order to identify who among them is financially worst off. METHODS We use 20 years of data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey to examine the income and consumption of older Americans. RESULTS The poverty rate is cut in fourth if both income and consumption are used to define poverty. Those most likely to be poor defined by only income but not poor defined by income and consumption together are married, White, and homeowners and have a high school diploma or higher. The income poor alone display sufficient assets to raise consumption above poverty thresholds, whereas the consumption poor are shown to have income just above the poverty threshold and few assets. DISCUSSION The poorest among the older population are those who are income and consumption poor. Understanding the nature of this double poverty population is important in measuring the success of future public policies to reduce poverty among this group.

Assets of the aged: clues and issues.

The 1985 median household wealth of the aged in the United States was an estimated 63689 [dollars]. Although this is a considerable amount of wealth we know very little about what the aged do with their wealth. This note reviews the available data on the source and size of wealth among the aged; it summarizes the evidence on the savings behavior of the aged; and it explores their home-selling behavior. It then presents some international comparisons of wealth behavior of the aged in both developed and developing countries and concludes with possible public policy implications and the broader questions that the data raise. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA) (EXCERPT)