News Releases

ANN ARBOR – The contributions of Bob Willis over his long and distinguished career will be highlighted at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) on Friday May 17. ISR and the U-M Department of Economics are sponsoring a conference on “Health and Retirement: Expectations, Cognition and Behavior.” The conference will feature a number of Bob’s collaborators, colleagues, and students, and will include a panel discussion on “Contributions of the Health and Retirement Study.”

Bob was a Research Professor in ISR and professor of economics from 1995 until his retirement in December 2018. He served as director of the Health and Retirement Study from 1995 to 2007. He previously held positions at the University of Chicago, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the Stanford University.

Program for the event on May 17, 2019  (8:30 am- 4:30 pm)

8:50-9:00      Welcome: David Lam, Director, Institute for Social Research

9:00-10:15    Linked Household-Firm Data (Joint with Comparative Analysis of Enterprise Data Conference)
Chair: Maggie Levenstein

•  John M. Abowd, Joelle Abramowitz, Margaret C. Levenstein, Kristin McCue, Dhiren Patki, Trivellore Raghunathan, Ann M. Rodgers, Matthew D. Shapiro, and Nada Wasi. “Optimal Probabilistic Record Linkage: Best Practice for Linking Employers in Survey and Administrative Data”
• Henry Hyatt, Kristin Sandusky, and Seth Murray. “Business Ownership Dynamics and Labor Market Fluidity”
• Wolfgang Keller and Hâle Utar. “Globalization, Gender and the Family”

10:15-10:45      Break

10:45-12:00  Demography of Health, Aging and Intergenerational Support
Chair: Robert Hauser

• Janice Compton and Robert Pollak. “The Life Expectancy of Older Couples and Surviving Spouses”
• Joe Hotz, Bob Schoeni, Judy Seltzer, Emily Wiemers and HwaJung Choi. “Disparities in Mortality & Morbidity and Its Consequences for Intergenerational Transfers in the U.S.”
• Elizabeth Frankenberg and Duncan Thomas. “Stress, Health and Cognitive Impairment: Preliminary results from Aceh, Indonesia”

12:00-1:15      Lunch

1:15-2:30     Expectations
Chair: Joanne Hsu

• Pamela Giustinelli, Charles Manski, and Francesca Molinari. “Precise or Imprecise Probabilities?: Evidence from Survey Response”
• Michael Hurd, Susann Rohwedder, Peter Hudomiet. “The Causal Effects of Economic Incentives, Health and Job Characteristics on Retirement: Estimates Based on Subjective Conditional Probabilities”
• Pamela Giustinelli and Matthew Shapiro. “SeaTE: Subjective ex ante Treatment Effect of Health on Retirement”

2:30-3:00      Break

3:00-4:15     Panel on Contributions of the Health and Retirement Study
Chair: John Haaga

• Internationalization of the HRS
  • Jim Smith
  • Axel Börsch-Supan
• The HRS and the Internet – Arie Kapteyn
• Innovations in Survey Research – David Weir

4:15-4:30      Closing remarks — Bob Willis