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Olivia S. Mitchell

" "

International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor

Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy

Professor of Insurance and Risk Management

Executive Director, Pension Research Council

mitchelo@wharton.upenn.edu215-898-0424

3303 Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall

Ph.D., Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1978

Dr. Olivia S. Mitchell is the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor, as well as Professor of Insurance/Risk Management and Business Economics/Policy; Executive Director of the Pension Research Council; and Director of the Boettner Center on Pensions and Retirement Research; all at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Concurrently Dr. Mitchell serves as a Research Associate at the NBER; Independent Director on the Allspring Mutual Fund Boards ; Co-Investigator for the Health and Retirement Study at the University of Michigan; and Member of the Executive Board for the Michigan Retirement Research Center. She also advises the Centre for Pensions and Superannuation UNSW; Research Fellow, Leibnitz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, Goethe University Frankfurt; and the Advisory Committee, Retirement and Savings Institute, HEC Montreal. She received the MA and PhD degrees in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the BA in Economics from Harvard University. Dr. Mitchell was also awarded the Doctor Rerum Publicarum Honoris Causa, Goethe University of Frankfurt; Doctor Oeconomiae Honoris Causa, University of St. Gallen; and an honorary Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Mitchell’s professional interests focus on public and private pensions, insurance and risk management, financial literacy, and public finance. Her research explores how systematic longevity risk and financial crises can shape household portfolios and work patterns over the life cycle, the economics and finance of defined contribution pensions, financial literacy and wealth accumulation, and claiming behavior for Social Security benefits. Her research has been appeared in leading academic journals including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Review of Finance, and it has been featured in outlets such as The Economist, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. She also blogs on Forbes. She has published over 270 books and articles, and she is a Senior Editor of the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance.

Dr. Mitchell received the Fidelity Pyramid Prize for research improving lifelong financial well-being; the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession; and the Roger F. Murray First Prize (twice) from the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance. She was also honored with the Premio Internazionale Dell’Istituto Nazionale Delle Assicurazioni from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome. Her study of Social Security reform won the Paul Samuelson Award for “Outstanding Writing on Lifelong Financial Security” from TIAA-CREF. In 2011, Investment Advisor Magazine named her one of the “25 Most Influential People” and “50 Top Women in Wealth;” in 2010 she received the Retirement Income Industry Association’s Award for Achievement in Applied Retirement Research; and in 2010 Wealth Management Magazine named her one of the “50 Top Women in Wealth.” In 2015, she was named a “Top 10 Women Economist” by the World Economic Forum, and in 2016 Crain Communications named her a “Top 100 Innovator, Disruptor, and Change-Maker in Business.” In 2019, Worth.com named her a “Top 16 Powerhouse Female Economist.”

Previously Professor Mitchell chaired Wharton’s Department of Insurance and Risk Management, and she also taught for 16 years at Cornell University. She was a Commissioner on the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security; a Member of the US Department of Labor’s ERISA Advisory Council; and on the Board of Directors of Alexander and Alexander Services, Inc., the Board of the American Economic Association, the Advisory Board for the Central Provident Fund of Singapore, the National Academy of Social Insurance Board, the Board of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and the GAO Advisory Board. She also co-chaired the Technical Panel on Trends in Retirement Income and Saving for the Social Security Advisory Council; and she served as Vice President for the American Economic Association.

Professor Mitchell has visited and taught at numerous institutions including Harvard University, the NBER, Cornell University, the Goethe University of Frankfurt, the Singapore Management University, and the University of New South Wales. Professor Mitchell has consulted with many public and private groups including the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund, the Investment Company Institute, the President’s Economic Forum, the World Bank, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, the White House Conference on Social Security, the Q Group, and the Association of Flight Attendants. She has also testified before numerous committees of the US Congress, the UK Parliament, the Australian Parliament, the US Department of Labor, and the Brazilian Senate. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese, having lived and worked in Latin America, Europe, and Australasia.

PubMed Search
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=mitchell%2C%20olivia%20OR%20mitchell%20OS
Website(s)
Wharton Faculty Page
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Research Themes
Child Development and Human Endowments
International Population Research
Structures of Inequality and the Life Course

Main navigation

Videos
  • Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center: Olivia S. Mitchell delivers the Decennial Annivarsary testimonial

  • Brookings Institution: Olivia S. Mitchell on Building a better retirement System for America

  •  Asofondos: Olivia S. Mitchell on El futuro de los sistemas pensionales en el mundo[The Future of Pension systems around the World]

View All
  • First-Round Impacts of the 2008 Chilean Pension System Reform
  • Financial Literacy, Schooling, and Wealth Accumulation
  • Pension Payouts in Chile: Past, Present, and Future Prospects
News
April 18, 2025

Olivia Mitchell Writes Op-Ed on How Financial Skills Decline with Age, MarketWatch

April 16, 2025

Olivia Mitchell Advocates for Early Financial Education at Home to Improve Financial Literacy, Al Día

April 15, 2025

Olivia Mitchell Emphasizes Teaching Children About Financial Literacy, Knowledge at Wharton

View All
  • The Effect of Default Retirement Savings on Credit Scores

  • Understanding Retirement Plan Default Behavior

  • Consumption Commitments and Moral Hazard: Theory and Evidence from Older Workers

  • American’s Willingness to Voluntarily Delay Retirement

  • Optimal Life Cycle Portfolio Choice with Changing Family Status and the Demand for Life-Contingent Assets

  • Understanding the Emerging Micropensions Market in India

  • Ambiguity Attitudes and Retirement Preparedness

  • Annuity Demand

  • Costly Portfolio Adjustment and Delegated Money Management

  • Longevity Risk and Annuities in Singapore

  • Borrowing from Tomorrow: 401(k) Loans and Repayment Behavior

  • Life Cycle Funds and 401(k) Portfolio Selection

  • Contribution Patterns under the Chilean Retirement Survey

  • The Efficiency and Characteristics of Investment Choices Offered by 401(k) Pension Plans

  • Understanding Pension Literacy

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About Us

The Population Studies Center (PSC) at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) was founded in 1962 and stands as an international leader in research and training on the dynamic structure, organization, and health and well-being of human populations. The services that PSC provides have been funded by infrastructure grants awarded by the Population Dynamics Branch at Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) since 1978. The center and its associates are also supported by research grants and contracts awarded by federal agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and by private foundations. Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences is the administrative home of the PSC and provides generous dedicated support to the center.

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