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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Do Private Household Transfers To The Elderly Respond To Public Pension Benefits? Evidence From Rural China, Plamen Nikolov, Alan Adelman Apr 2019

Do Private Household Transfers To The Elderly Respond To Public Pension Benefits? Evidence From Rural China, Plamen Nikolov, Alan Adelman

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Aging populations in developing countries have spurred the introduction of public pension programs to preserve the standard of living for the elderly. The often-overlooked mechanism of intergenerational transfers, however, can dampen these intended policy effects, as adult children who make income contributions to their parents could adjust their behavior in response to changes in their parents’ income. Exploiting a unique policy intervention in China, we examine using a difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) approach how a new pension program impacts inter vivos transfers. We show that pension benefits lower the propensity of adult children to transfer income to elderly parents in the context …


Short-Run Health Consequences Of Retirement And Pension Benefits: Evidence From China, Plamen Nikolov, Alan Adelman Jan 2019

Short-Run Health Consequences Of Retirement And Pension Benefits: Evidence From China, Plamen Nikolov, Alan Adelman

Justice & Well-Being Studies Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the impact of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) in China. Exploiting the staggered implementation of an NRPS policy expansion that began in 2009, we used a difference-in-difference approach to study the effects of the introduction of pension benefits on the health status, health behaviors, and healthcare utilization of rural Chinese adults age 60 and above. The results point to three main conclusions. First, in addition to improvements in self-reported health, older adults with access to the pension program experienced significant improvements in several important measures of health, including mobility, self-care, usual activities, and vision. Second, regarding …