Olivia S. Mitchell
International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor
University of Pennsylvania

Olivia S. Mitchell is the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor of Insurance and Risk Management and the Executive Director of the Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. At the University, Dr. Mitchell is also the Director of the Boettner Center on Pensions and Retirement Research. She is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Co-Investigator for the AHEAD/ Health and Retirement Studies at the University of Michigan. Dr. Mitchell's main areas of research and teaching are private and public insurance, risk management, public finance and labor markets, and compensation and pensions, with a US and an international focus. Her extensive research analyzes public and private retirement pensions as well as links between wealth, health, and retirement. Dr. Mitchell recently served on President Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security. Dr. Mitchell has published extensively in the area of saving, pension, and retirement. Her coauthored study on Social Security reform won the Paul Samuelson Award for "Outstanding Writing on Lifelong Financial Security" from TIAA-CREF. She has spoken before the World Economic Forum; the International Monetary Fund; the Investment Company Institute; the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans; the White House Conference on Social Security; the President’s Economic Forum; and she has provided testimony to committees of the US Congress, the UK Parliament, the Australian Parliament, and the Brazilian Senate. Dr. Mitchell received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.