Olivia S. Mitchell is the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor, Professor of Insurance and Risk Management and Business Economics and Public Policy, Executive Director of the Pension Research Council, and Director of the Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Research, all at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is also Research Associate at the NBER. Her main interests are public and private pensions, insurance and risk management, financial literacy, and social insurance.
Annamaria Lusardi is the Denit Trust Endowed Chair of Economics and Accountancy at the George Washington University School of Business (GWSB), and founder and academic director of GWSB's Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center. Previously she taught at Dartmouth College, Princeton University, the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and Columbia Business School.

Around the world, people nearing and entering retirement are holding ever-greater levels of debt than in the past. This is not a benign situation, as many pre-retirees and retirees are stressed about their indebtedness. Moreover, this growth in debt among the older population may render retirees vulnerable to financial shocks, medical care bills, and changes in interest rates. Contributors to this volume explore key aspects of the rise in debt across older cohorts, drill down into the types of debt and reasons for debt incurred by the older population, and review policies to remedy some of the financial problems facing older persons, in the US and elsewhere. The authors explore which groups are most affected by debt and identify the factors producing this important increase in leverage at older ages.
It is clear that the economic and market environment is influential when it comes to saving and debt. Access to easy borrowing, low interest rates, and the rising cost of education have had significant impacts on how much people borrow, and how much debt they carry at older ages. In this environment, the capacity to manage debt is ever more important as older workers lack the opportunity to recover from mistakes.