Economist Position at BSR

Supervisory Health Scientist Administrator (vacancy announcements NIA-10-372792-CR-MP and NIA-10-372792-CR-DE)

Health Scientist Administrator (vacancy announcements NIA-10-368913-CR-MP and NIA-10-368913-CR-DE)

The Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) sponsors extramural and collaborative research and research training on aging at the individual, institutional and societal levels. A large fraction of BSR’s research budget is devoted to studying the implications for individuals, labor markets, government social insurance programs (e.g., Social Security and Medicare), employer-provided retirement health insurance programs, and the overall economy, of population aging and of the determinants of work and retirement decisions in later life. BSR is one of the largest funders of economics research in the U.S. – $39 million in Fiscal Year 2008 – supporting domestic and international research on retirement, health, and data infrastructure development (e.g., the Health and Retirement Study). For additional details, please see our list of currently funded research (MS Word, 230K) and a summary of the research portfolio (MS Word, 90K).

BSR is recruiting for a Health Scientist Administrator (HSA) to develop and manage this large, policy relevant portfolio of research grants, training grants, career awards, fellowships, cooperative agreements, and contracts. Recent BSR-sponsored funding initiatives include:

• Retirement Economics, incl. labor force participation and the determinants of the retirement decision; comprehensive models of retirement integrating health and disability, wealth, and family structure; savings behavior; intergenerational transfers; cross-country comparisons of public and private transfers; and neuroeconomics, incl. the role of anticipatory affect on financial decision making over the lifespan.
• Behavioral Economics, incl. approaches (such as collaborations between the fields of psychology and economics) to increase retirement savings and financial literacy.
• Health Economics, incl. the economic impact of disease and the value of good health; satellite national health accounts to improve the measurement of medical spending and to explicitly measure health status; health care cost growth; the relationship between insurance (i.e., Medicare, Medigap, Advantage, Medicare Part D) coverage and health/health expenditures; the impact of benefit design on expenditures, adherence and health outcomes; and expenditure forecasting, health disparities and regional variation in expenditures and health.
• Data Infrastructure Development, incl. harmonization of longitudinal cross-national surveys of aging with the US Health and Retirement Study.
• Long-term Care, incl. the long-term care insurance market and the explanations for the size of the market for these products (Medicaid crowd-out, pricing, plan coverage, etc.).
• Socioeconomic Status and Health, incl. the effect of early life health and socioeconomic status on outcomes later in life; and the relationship between income, consumption, education, race and health.
• Macroeconomic-Demographic Aspects of Population Aging, incl. the impact of aging on aggregate saving and capital formation, the effect of baby boomer retirements on asset markets, the role of international capital flows, the impact of the aging workforce, and even a declining workforce, on productivity and economic growth.

NIA is recruiting at both the junior and senior levels for both status and non-status applicants. Candidates should have a PhD and research training in labor economics, health economics, econometrics, macroeconomics, public finance, behavioral economics, and/or economic demography. The candidate should also have very strong writing and communication skills, and an entrepreneurial personality. The ads (at the junior and senior levels) have been posted and you are able to access them at www.nia.nih.gov/AboutNIA/Jobs.htm. For qualifications required, evaluation criteria, and application instructions, please contact Ms. Lauren Carroll Tedesco at 301-594-2288 or lauren.carroll@nih.gov For specifics about the position, please contact Dr. John Haaga, BSR Deputy Director at 301-496-3131 or HaagaJ@mail.nih.gov .

DHHS and NIH are Equal Opportunity Employers