The purpose of the Program Development Core is to support the development of new research and career development initiatives that will lead to high quality proposals. The mechanism for these developments is the support of small scale pilot projects. We propose three specific pilot projects in years 01 and 02 of the Center and describe the mechanism for selecting new ones in years 03-05. Pilot Project 1 is to develop a proposal for submission as an R01 on """"""""Income and Wealth Inequality Among the Elderly: Long-Run Socioeconomic Factors"""""""" by Drs. Lee Lillard, Lynn Karoly and Constantijn Panis. This pilot project proposes to explore the use of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the HRS, and the Asset and Health Dynamics (AHEAD) datasets to study the long term consequences of socioeconomic status, earning potential, living arrangements and marital history for wealth disparities among older Americans. Pilot Project 3 is to develop a proposal for submission as a First Award on """"""""Sources of Household Income and Black-White Differences in Living Arrangements of Impaired Elderly"""""""" by Dr. Raynard Kington. This pilot project will explore use of the PSID and AHEAD datasets to study income and its distribution among family members as a potential explanation of black/white differences in nursing home utilization and predominant living arrangements. Subsequent pilot projects beyond the first two years will be selected by the Executive Committee of the Center, based on a competition among submissions from Center researchers. All pilot projects to be initiated are subject to approval by NIA staff.
