Karen Elizabeth Smith
Senior Research Associate
The Urban Institute
Background
Karen Smith is a Senior Research Associate at The Urban Institute. Her research focuses on model building and simulations for health care and tax policy issues. She has extensive experience with numerous computer programming languages and large data sets. Before joining the Urban Institute in 1998, Ms. Smith was a manager in the Health Policy Economics Group at Price Waterhouse LLP. Previously, she was an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office for nearly ten years and a computer modeling consultant for the New Zealand Treasury for three years.
Ms. Smith earned her B.A. in Computer Science and Economics from the University of Michigan and has taken post-graduate courses in Statistics, Econometrics and Economics at the George Washington University.
Research Projects for the Center for Retirement Research
Completed
"How the Income Tax Treatment of Saving and Social Security Benefits May Affect Boomers' Retirement Incomes" (with Barbara A. Butrica and Karen E. Smith), Working Paper, #2008-3, February 2008.
"Working for a Good Retirement" (with Barbara A. Butrica and C. Eugene Steuerle), Working Paper, #2006-8, March 2006
"Making Maximum Use of Tax-Deferred Retirement Accounts" (with Janette Kawachi and Eric Toder), Working Paper, #2005-19, December 2005
"Does Work Pay at Older Ages" (with Barbara A. Butrica, Richard W. Johnson and Eugene Steuerle), Working Paper, #2004-30, November 2004
"Providing Guarantees in Social Security" (with Eugene Steuerle and Pablo Montagnes), Working Paper, #2004-21, August 2004
"Deferring Income in Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plans: The Dynamics of Participant Contributions" (with Richard W. Johnson and Leslie A. Muller), Working Paper, #2004-20, August 2004
"Reform Model Two of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security: Distributional Outcomes Under Different Economic and Behavioral Assumptions" (with Melissa M. Favreault, Joshua H. Goldwyn, Lawrence H. Thompson, Cori E. Uccello and Sheila R. Zedlewski), Working Paper, #2004-19, August 2004
"Simulating the Distributional Consequences of Personal Accounts: Sensitivity to Annuitization Options" (with Cori E. Uccello, Melissa M. Favreault, and Lawrence H. Thompson), Working Paper, #2003-17, October 2003
"It's All Relative: Understanding the Retirement Prospects of Baby Boomers" (with Barbara A. Butrica and Howard M. Iams), Working Paper, #2003-21, November 2003
"Projecting Poverty Rates in 2020 for the 62 and Older Population: What Changes Can We Expect and Why?" (with Barbara A. Butrica and Eric Toder), Working Paper, #2002-03, September 2002.
Selected Publications
- Smith, Karen Elizabeth. 1999. "Projecting Retirement Incomes to 2020," In Final Report Modeling Income in the Near Term - Projections of Retirement Income Through 2020 for the 1931-60 Birth Cohorts, The Urban Institute (September).
- Smith, Karen Elizabeth and Jack Rodgers. 1998. "Vouchers and Choice: The Impact of MSAs on Medicare Beneficiaries," Price Waterhouse LLP. In M. Barer, T. Getzen, and G. Stoddart, eds., Health, Health Care and Health Economics: Perspectives on Distribution. New York: Wiley and Sons, p 209-230.
- Smith, Karen Elizabeth. 1998. "Congress Reforms Medicare Payments for Graduate Medical Education: What Does It Mean for Teaching Hospitals?," Health Policy Series, Price Waterhouse LLP, January. Presented before AAMC Conference on Program Downsizing.
- Smith, Karen Elizabeth. 1997. "Impact of Tax Restructuring on Tax-Exempt Organizations," a report by Price Waterhouse LLP and Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered.
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