Retirement and cognitive reserve: a stochastic frontier approach applied to survey data

This paper proposes the use of the stochastic frontier approach to analyse the relationship
between cognitive performance, retirement and non-professional activities of the 50+
individuals using data from three surveys conducted in Europe (the Survey on Health,
Ageing and Retirement in Europe and the English Longitudinal Survey on Ageing) and
United States (the Health and Retirement Study). Next to the strong relationship between
cognitive performance, age and education, this study highlights the negative effect of
retirement and the positive impact of non-professional activities and social contacts.