ECON 3242 Economics of Aging

In a world facing the challenges associated with rapidly aging populations, the tools of economics will be essential to designing effective public policy solutions. This course first describes the institutional environment-including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and employer retirement plans--in which individuals and families make decisions about their older years. It also debates potential reforms that aim to resolve the shortcomings and inequities of those policies and to put them on sounder fiscal footing. Then students will conduct their own empirical research with the same survey data used by professional economists, and learn how to effectively communicate the results to a broader audience.