Associate Professor of Economics Dora L. Costa has won the 1998 Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security, given by TIAA-CREF, the world's largest pension system and the premier one for higher education. She won the award (which carries a $20,000 cash prize) for her book, The Evolution of Retirement: An American Economic History, 1880-1990 (University of Chicago Press, 1998), which explores the reasons for and implications of the increasing trend of earlier retirement among Americans.
"Hopefully, winning the Samuelson Award will help focus attention on the need for individuals to increase their personal savings to meet the greater financial demands created by this longer time in retirement," she said.
Institute Professor Peter Diamond received a certificate of excellence in the same competition. He was recognized for his paper titled "Macroeconomic Aspects of Social Security Reform.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on December 16, 1998.
