Working Papers

Wharton Pension Research Council Working Papers

• Perceptions of Mortality: Individual Assessments of Longevity Risk
  Financially successful retirement depends in large part on managing longevity risk: individuals need to save during their working lives to cover expenses in retirement, and then they must spend down those savings carefully so as not to outlive their assets. Despite the centrality of individuals’ expectations regarding life expectancy, little is known about how longevity […]
• Building on Hope or Tackling Fear? Policy Responses to the Growing Costs of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias
  In most countries, it is clear that the costs of care, treatment, and support of people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias will rise considerably in the next few decades. This paper discusses dementia as an economic concern and looks at the policy questions addressed by the current literature on the costs of dementia. It […]
• Property Tax Deferral: Can a Public/Private Partnership Help Provide Lifetime Income?
  Many retirees will not have enough money from conventional retirement programs to maintain their standard of living once they stop working. To help support themselves, they will need to tap their home equity, the major asset for most middle-income older households. Yet tapping home equity is difficult: most people are reluctant to downsize and, even […]
• Introduction: New Models for Managing Longevity Risk: Public/Private Partnerships
  Public/private partnerships (PPPs) usually involve a governmental organization that collaborates with private sector firms to provide needed goods and services, to accomplish goals that neither party could likely achieve on its own. Typically PPPs involve government financing, while the private sector partner provides expertise, management responsibility, and accountability. This overview identifies perspectives from experts in […]
• Public/Private Partnerships Extend Community-based Organization’s Longevity
  Public/private partnerships are essential to the survival of mission-driven non-profits, especially those in aging services. Aging service nonprofits receive less than two percent of all institutional philanthropic dollars, with a largest segment of their funding provided by government entities. Carter Burden Network (CBN) is an aging services nonprofit organization serving community-dwelling seniors in Manhattan, with […]