The Recent Evolution of Retirement Patterns in Canada

Using data from three waves of the General Social Survey on retirement and older workers (1994, 2002 and 2007), we document the evolution of retirement patterns over the last three decades. We combined the analysis of retirement ages of actual retirees with data on expected retirement ages of current workers to create a longer perspective on changes in retirement behaviour in Canada. We also investigate trends in work after retirement. Our findings are in line with findings from other countries. There is an upward trend in retirement ages which likely started around year 2000 for cohorts born after 1945. This trend contrasts with the slow decline in retirement ages observed prior to the end of the millennium. While the downward trend was likely due to factors such as the offering of early retirement programs in private firms, the upward trend is likely to be caused by a wider variety of sources, including better health, less pervasive defined benefit pensions and in general less generous pensions.Retirement, aging, older workers, expectations

The Recent Evolution of Retirement Patterns in Canada

Using data from three waves of the General Social Survey on retirement and older workers (1994, 2002 and 2007), we document the evolution of retirement patterns over the last three decades. We combined the analysis of retirement ages of actual retirees with data on expected retirement ages of current workers to create a longer perspective on changes in retirement behaviour in Canada. We also investigate trends in work after retirement. Our findings are in line with findings from other countries. There is an upward trend in retirement ages which likely started around year 2000 for cohorts born after 1945. This trend contrasts with the slow decline in retirement ages observed prior to the end of the millennium. While the downward trend was likely due to factors such as the offering of early retirement programs in private firms, the upward trend is likely to be caused by a wider variety of sources, including better health, less pervasive defined benefit pensions and in general less generous pensions.Retirement, aging, policies, expectations

The Recent Evolution of Retirement Patterns in Canada

Using data from three waves of the General Social Survey on retirement and older workers (1994, 2002 and 2007), we document the evolution of retirement patterns over the last three decades. We combined the analysis of retirement ages of actual retirees with data on expected retirement ages of current workers to create a longer perspective on changes in retirement behaviour in Canada. We also investigate trends in work after retirement. Our findings are in line with findings from other countries. There is an upward trend in retirement ages which likely started around year 2000 for cohorts born after 1945. This trend contrasts with the slow decline in retirement ages observed prior to the end of the millennium. While the downward trend was likely due to factors such as the offering of early retirement programs in private firms, the upward trend is likely to be caused by a wider variety of sources, including better health, less pervasive defined benefit pensions and in general less generous pensions.retirement, pensions, Canada

How Did the Elimination of the Earnings Test Above the Normal Retirement Age Affect Retirement Expectations?

This study examines the effect of the 2000 repeal of the earnings test above the normal retirement age on retirement expectations of workers aged 51 to 61 - their probabilities to work past age 62 and 65 as well as the age at which they expect to start claiming old age social security benefits. We use administrative records linked to the HRS to create variables that accurately reflect the change in financial incentives. For men, we find results in line with theoretical predictions on the probability to work after age 65. For example, men whose marginal wage rate increased when the earnings test was repealed, showed the largest increase in the probability to work full-time past normal retirement age. For women, we do not find significant results, possibly due to omitting spouse benefits and their interaction with the earnings test. We also do not find significant evidence of effects of the repeal of the earnings test on the probability to work past age 62 or the expected claiming age. On the other hand, for those reaching the normal retirement age, deviations between the age at which Social Security benefits are actually claimed and the previously reported expected age are more negative in 2000 than in 1998, suggesting that the repeal has increased claiming immediately after reaching normal retirement age. Since our calculations show that the tax introduced by the earnings test was small when accounting for actuarial benefit adjustments and differential mortality, our results suggest that although workers form expectations in a way consistent with forward-looking behavior, they misperceive the complicated rules of the earnings test.

Forecasting Labor Force Participation and Economic Resources of the Early Baby Boomers

This paper forecasts the retirement patterns and resources of the Early Baby Boomers by estimating forward-looking dynamic models of labor force participation, wealth accumulation and pension and Social Security benefit claiming for older workers using seven waves of HRSdata. The two most important innovations of our proposed approach are the use of alternative measures of pension entitlements and the associated incentives, and accounting for subjective expectations about future work. Our main findings are that the Early Baby Boomers will work longer and claim Social Security later.

Fertility and Female Employment Dynamics in Europe: The Effect of Using Alternative Econometric Modeling Assumptions

We investigate the direct and long-run effects of fertility on employment in Europe estimating dynamic models of labor supply under different assumptions regarding the exogeneity of fertility and modeling assumptions related to initial conditions, unobserved heterogeneity and serial correlation in the error terms. We find overall large direct and long-run effects of giving birth on employment probabilities, and these effects differ considerably across countries. We find that within countries the results are sensitive to the statistical assumption made on initial conditions, the inclusion of serial correlation and the assumption of strict exogeneity of children. However, the pattern across countries is robust to these assumptions. We show that such patterns are largely consistent with prevailing institutional differences related to the flexibility of the labor markets and family policies.intertemporal labor supply, female employment, fertility, dynamic binary choice models, initial conditions

Best-Offset Hardware Prefetching

International audienceHardware prefetching is an important feature of modern high-performance processors. When the application working set is too large to fit in on-chip caches, disabling hardware prefetchers may result in severe performance reduction. A new prefetcher was recently introduced, the Sandbox prefetcher, that tries to find dynamically the best prefetch offset using the sandbox method. The Sandbox prefetcher uses simple hardware and was shown to be quite effective. However, the sandbox method does not take into account prefetch timeliness. We propose an offset prefetcher with a new method for selecting the prefetch offset that takes into account prefetch timeliness. We show that our Best-Offset prefetcher outperforms the Sandbox prefetcher on the SPEC CPU2006 benchmarks , with equally simple hardware

La Métamorphose, un opéra en trois actes Genèse, analyse et formalisation d’une démarche compositionnelle

La version intégrale de cette thèse est disponible uniquement pour consultation individuelle à la Bibliothèque de musique de l’Université de Montréal (www.bib.umontreal.ca/MU).Composé entre 2007 et 2009, l’opéra La Métamorphose est une œuvre ambitieuse en raison de sa taille, mais également par son intention première de vouloir se rapprocher de l’idéal du Gesamtkunstwerk. Afin d’atteindre cet objectif, nous avons multiplié les efforts pour assurer une production professionnelle qui permettrait, non seulement, une interprétation correcte de l’œuvre, mais qui garantirait le financement nécessaire à un travail d’équipe dès la phase de conceptualisation. Bien que la production professionnelle de La Métamorphose n’ait pas eu lieu, comme convenu, à cause d’un désengagement de dernière minute du producteur principal, nous avons eu la chance de travailler une année complète en collectif ce qui a grandement aidé à synthétiser la prise de décision artistique liée à ce projet. Plus qu'une fin en-soi, cet opéra est alors devenu, par la force des choses, un véhicule permettant l'approfondissement et l'appropriation de plusieurs nouvelles techniques d'écriture avec l'aide, entre autres, de la Composition assistée par ordinateur : morphing, harmonie basée sur des analyses spectrales ou sur des modèles de résonance, profilage mélodique, etc. Le premier chapitre de la thèse aborde la genèse de La Métamorphose avec tout le travail de recherche précédant la composition proprement dite de l'œuvre : apprentissage des outils de programmation (MaxMSP, Openmusic), conception du livret, premières esquisses, travail de conceptualisation en équipe (compositeur, librettiste, metteur en scène, producteur). Le deuxième chapitre présente une analyse musicale approfondie de La Métamorphose en mettant l’accent sur les techniques d’écriture inspirées du thème universel de la transformation. Le dernier chapitre démontre la formalisation graduelle de ma démarche compositionnelle et propose une synthèse des nouvelles connaissances acquises lors de l'écriture de La Métamorphose.Composed between 2007 and 2009, the opera La Métamorphose is ambitious by its size, but also by its first intention to get closer to the ideal of a total artwork. To do so, efforts have been multiplied to assure a professional production that would not only allow a correct performance of the work, but also give out the necessary funding to work as a team during the conceptualization process. Although the professional production of this work has not taken place as planned, due to a last minute disengagement of the main producer, the creative team still managed to work together one whole year, which greatly helped to synthesize artistic decisions linked to this piece. More than being a be-all and end-all, this opera project has become a vehicle allowing a further deepening and appropriation of many new compositional techniques with the help, amongst others, of Computer Assisted Composition: morphing, spectral analysis based harmony, resonance model based harmony, melodic profiling etc. The first chapter of this thesis approaches the genesis of La Métamorphose including all of the research preceding the composition of the work: mastering visual programming tools (MaxMSP, Openmusic), writing of the libretto, first drafts, conceptualization work as a team (composer, librettist, stage director, producer). The second chapter presents an analysis of La Métamorphose, putting the emphasis on compositional techniques isnpired by the universal theme of transformation. The last chapter demonstrates the gradual formalization of my musical reasoning and proposes a synthesis of the new knowledge acquired during the composition of La Métamorphose