The ongoing Program Project on the Economics of Aging is a coordinated series of investigations that analyze the economic circumstances and health care of the elderly. The selection of research topics has been guided by the questions that will be of primary and increasing concern with an aging population. By addressing simultaneously several important and interrelated issues, the aim is to achieve a better understanding of the aged than would emerge from separate research efforts. A unified approach with aging as a focus can lead to a whole substantially greater than the sum of its parts. The project will be composed of an administrative and support core, a data acquisition core, and six subprojects: (1) labor market behavior. (2) financial status I, (3) financial status II (4)housing and living arrangements, (5) family support, and (4) health care. The data core, the second financial status project, the health care project are new additions to the continuing program project. A proposal for an international comparison of labor market behavior and housing choices of the elderly in the United States and West Germany will be submitted as a supplement. In addition to the principal investigator and the other senior investigators, each of the subprojects will involve a small number of key personnel, for whom funding is requested. This group will form the central research team. The overall work of the National Bureau of Economic Research on the economics of aging, however, will involve a considerably larger group. The coherence of the project is assured through many small-group meetings in Cambridge, summer institutes, formal conferences, and informal subproject meetings. An important goal of the project is to attract younger faculty and graduate students to research on the economics of aging. The project will direct a great deal of research talent to the economics of aging over the next several years. In addition, the project will leave in its wake a large number of economists who are well-versed in the economic, health, and social problems of the elderly and who will in turn encourage graduate students and others to direct their attention to these issues.
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