Archive: J. Michael Collins

elderly man inserting credit card to ATM

Abstract This paper documents and examines the rise in mortgage usage among older Americans over the past 30 years.  It uses data from a variety of sources including the Health and Retirement Study, Decennial Census, American Community Survey, Survey of Consumer Finances, and the American Housing Survey.  We begin by documenting the large increase in…

Group of women working in an office

Abstract Retirement-account balances are lower among women than men.  This study assesses the role of financial knowledge and empowerment in contributing to the gender gap in savings.  We evaluate the effects of financial education delivered to women in the workplace, using administrative data on 31,000 public-sector workers in Wisconsin.  All of these workers participated in…