Michael Hurd is Senior Principal Researcher at RAND and the Director of the RAND Center for the Study of Aging. He has published papers on a wide range of topics in the economics of aging including the structure of private pensions and Social Security and their effects on retirement decisions, the economic status of the elderly, the determinants of consumption and saving, the use of health care services, the relationship between socioeconomic status and mortality, and the effects of the Great Recession.