Melissa M. Favreault
Senior Research Associate
The Urban Institute
Background
Melissa Favreault is a Senior Research Associate at The Urban Institute. Dr. Favreault's main areas of specialization include aging and the life course, social policy, and inequality. For over a decade, she has worked primarily on the development and evaluation of a number of large-scale microsimulation models designed to facilitate distributional analysis of reforms to the Social Security program. These models include Steven Caldwell's Cornell Simulation Model (CORSIM), the Social Security Administration's Model of Income in the Near Term (MINT) and Polisim, and an updated version of the Urban Institute's Dynamic Simulation of Income Model (DYNASIM). Aspects of these models on which she has worked most extensively include labor supply near retirement, program take-up (both for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income), and demographic events (schooling, living arrangements, childbearing, disability, and death). The substantive focus of much of Dr. Favreault's recent research has been on the ways in which socioeconomic differentials in life events impact Social Security's progressivity and ways that Social Security proposals impact women and low-income workers.
Dr. Favreault earned her B.A. from Amherst College in Political Science and Russian, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University.
Research Projects for the Center for Retirement Research
Completed
"The Implications of Career Lengths for Social Security" (with C. Eugene Steuerle), Working Paper, #2008-5, Febraury 2008.
"Social Security Spouse and Survivor Benefits for the Modern Family" (with C. Eugene Steuerle), Working Paper, #2007-7, February 2007.
"Reform Model Two of the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security: Distributional Outcomes Under Different Economic and Behavioral Assumptions" (with Joshua Goldwyn, Karen Smith, Lawrence Thompson, Cori Uccello, and Sheila Zedlewski), Working Paper, #2004-19, August 2004.
"Living Arrangements and Supplemental Security Income Receipt among the Aged" (with Douglas A. Wolf), Working Paper, #2004-03, February 2004
"Interactions Between Social Security Reform and the Supplemental Security Income Program for the Aged" (with Paul S. Davies), Working Paper, #2004-02, February 2004
"Simulating the Distributional Consequences of Personal Accounts: Sensitivity to Annuitization Options" (with Cori E. Uccello, Karen E. Smith, and Lawrence H. Thompson), Working Paper, #2003-17, October 2003
"Employment, Social Security, and Future Retirement Outcomes for Single Mothers" (with Richard W. Johnson and Joshua H. Goldwyn), Working Paper, #2003-14, July 2003.
"Forecasting Incidence of Work Limitations, Disability Insurance Receipt, and Mortality in Dynamic Simulation Models Using Social Security Administrative Records: A Research Note" Working Paper, #2002-09, December 2002
"Retiring Together or Working Alone: The Impact of Spousal Employment and Disability on Retirement Decisions" (with Richard W. Johnson), Working Paper, #2001-01, March 2001.
Selected Publications
- Richard W. Johnson and Melissa M. Favreault. 2004. “Economic Status in Later Life Among Women Who Raised Children Outside of Marriage.” Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 59B(6): S315-S323.
- Favreault, Melissa M., Frank J. Sammartino, and C. Eugene Steuerle, eds. 2002. Social Security and the Family: Addresing Unmet Needs in an Underfunded System. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
- Favreault, Melissa M. and Steven B. Caldwell. 2000. "Assessing Distributional Impacts of Social Security Using Dynamic Microsimulation." In Anil Gupta and Vishnu Kapur, eds., Microsimulation in Government Policy and Forecasting. North Holland Press, Contributions to Economic Analysis Series.