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Retirement and Bequest Issues in Forensic Economics

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Atlanta Marriott Marquis, International 4
Hosted By: National Association of Forensic Economics
  • Chair: Christina P. Tapia, Northwest Economics

Retirement Patterns of the Early and Middle Baby Boomers

Kevin E. Cahill
,
Sloan Center on Aging & Work

Abstract

Do the retirement patterns of the early and middle Baby Boomers resemble those of older cohorts? One well-documented finding from the retirement literature is that most Americans with career jobs later in life exit the labor force gradually, in stages. These stages include phased retirement, bridge employment, and reentry. Phased retirement entails a reduction in hours on one’s current job; bridge employment refers to a job change between career employment and complete labor force exit; and reentry refers to a return to the labor force following an initial retirement. Bridge employment has been the most common form of gradual retirement for much of the past three decades, at a time when older Americans are staying in the labor force later in life. A key question for policymakers is whether the retirement patterns of the Baby Boomers will resemble those of the cohorts that preceded them. We address this question using data on four cohorts of older Americans from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally-representative longitudinal survey that began in 1992. We find that the Baby Boomers are retiring in nontraditional fashions, as their predecessors did, albeit with a later start to their transitions from career employment. This finding sheds light on how retirement pathways are emerging as societal aging accelerates.

JEL Codes: K13 Forensic Economics; J14 Economics of the Elderly; J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply; J26 Retirement

Pension Treatment Under the Collateral Source Rule

Joseph I. Rosenberg
,
Financial Consultant/Advisor

Abstract

Collateral source rules typically prohibit the admission of evidence that the plaintiff or victim has received compensation from some source other than the damages sought against the defendant. Common sources of collateral source income include unemployment insurance, medical insurance, Social Security and Medicare benefits, and pensions. One common rationale for the collateral source income exclusion is the idea that such benefits may be viewed as part of the employment contract and thus the tortfeasor is not entitled to credit for them.

Exclusion of pension benefits as one collateral source offset to earnings loss is well established in federal courts and many state jurisdictions. Nonetheless, some limited discretion has been afforded to lower courts on appeal by allowing selected information pertaining to a plaintiff’s pension, including possible incentives to retire at a particular age. A more interesting and possibly complex exception involves allowing pensions that are already being received by injured plaintiffs (or survivors of a decedent in a death case) to be presented by defense as offsets to lost pension benefits. This and other issues involving pensions as a collateral source income are examined in this paper.

JEL Code: K13 Forensic Economics

Legal Malpractice Damages Arising from Probate Matters

Craig Allen
,
Commonwealth Research Group

Abstract

This paper examines the expansion of duties to non-clients on the part of lawyers in probate work, the consequent growth in the number of legal malpractice actions arising from that work, actuarial considerations where the testator is still living, and the tax and investment income components of the damages.

JEL Code: K13 Forensic Economics
Discussant(s)
Gregg Erickson
,
Erickson & Associates
James D. Rodgers
,
Pennsylvania State University
Constantine M. Boukidis
,
VWM Analytics, LLC
JEL Classifications
  • K1 - Basic Areas of Law
  • J1 - Demographic Economics