Preferences, Plans & Decision-making Capacity as Respondents Age in the Health & Retirement Study

Professor Richard Bonnie and I intend to study how people make decisions that affect their well-being during old age. We are particularly interested in how decision-making changes because of old age and because people anticipate old age. Such decisions may include some that economists typically study - bequests, purchases of insurance, saving versus consumption decisions, retirement - as well as some that receive more attention in other disciplines - such as planning for medical care and for the disposition of assets in case of incapacity or death, and communicating preferences about such matters to other family members.