Hugo Benítez-Silva

Overview

Hugo Benítez-Silva is a labor and health economist whose research focuses on Social Security disability insurance, retirement behavior, and dynamic structural models of individual decision-making under uncertainty. He was at Yale University during the work on the 1999 paper and is now at SUNY Stony Brook. His central methodological contribution is treating the DI application and appeal process as a dynamic game between individuals and the government, with self-reported disability status serving as private information about true disability status.

Key Contributions

• Benítez-Silva et al. (1999) — First systematic empirical decomposition of the full DI game tree (application → award → appeal → government re-decision) using HRS self-report data; established that the appeal option raises effective award rates from 46% to 73% at the cost of 10+ months of additional delay; demonstrated that HLIMPW (health limitation prevents work) is an approximate sufficient statistic for all three decision nodes. See SSA Sequential Determination Process, DI Application Costs and Take-Up, and Conditional DI Applicants.
• Benítez-Silva et al. (2004) — Introduced and tested the Rational Unbiased Reporting (RUR) hypothesis: that self-reported disability (HRS hlimpw) is an unbiased predictor of SSA's ultimate award. Five parametric and nonparametric tests (Bierens 1990, Horowitz-Spokoiny 2001) fail to reject RUR against ultimate award (p=0.09–0.79) but unanimously reject against first-stage DDS decisions (all p=0.00). See Rational Unbiased Reporting.

Related

• John Rust
• Rational Unbiased Reporting
• SSA Sequential Determination Process
• DI Application Costs and Take-Up
• Conditional DI Applicants
• Health and Retirement Study

Sources

• Benítez-Silva et al 1999 — An Empirical Analysis of the Social Security Disability Application, Appeal, and Award Process
• Benítez-Silva et al 2004 — How Large Is the Bias in Self-Reported Disability
• Benítez-Silva and Yin 2011 — Disability Insurance Applications near Retirement Age