Retirement Structural Model

The Gustman and Steinmeier model is a state-of-the-art structural model of the retirement decision.  The preference parameters estimated using the model can be used to forecast behavioral responses to various policy changes, such as hypothetical Social Security reforms.

Alan Gustman and Thomas Steinmeier have generously offered to make available to the research community the code used in their 2008 paper, “How Changes in Social Security Affect Recent Retirement Trends.”  The code is written in C++.  The Center for Retirement Research has modified the code so that it will run with currently available datasets and has prepared a user manual.  For researchers unfamiliar with C++, the CRR has also rewritten the code in Matlab and prepared a separate user manual.  We hope that researchers will extend and update the analysis and are happy to provide researchers with telephone and e-mail support.

Original Gustman and Steinmeier C++ code

Revised Gustman and Steinmeier C++ code (zipped) and user manual (.doc)

MATLAB version (zipped) of Gustman and Steinmeier Structural Model and user manual (.doc)

Suggested citation: Gustman, Alan L. and Thomas L. Steinmeier. 2008. “How Changes in Social Security Affect Recent Retirement Trends.” Working Paper 14105. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

For a related Working Paper